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THE 


UNITED    STATES  OF  YESTERDAY 

AND    OF    TO-MORROW. 


THE 


UNITED  STATES  OF  YESTERDAY 

AND    OF    TO-MORROW. 


BY 

WILLIAM   BARROWS,   D.D., 

AUTHOR   OF 
'twelve   nights    in   the   hunters'    camp;"      "  OREGON  :    THE   STRUGGLE    FOR 

possession;"  "the  Indian's  side  of  the  Indian  question;"  etc. 


Out  of  old  Books,  new  Writings,  and  much  Meditation  not  of  yesterday, 
lie  will  endeavor  to  select  a  thing  or  two ;  and  from  the  Past,  in  a  circuitous 
way,  illustrate  the  Present  and  the  Future.  —  Carlyle. 

Whoever  would  do  his  duty,  and  his  whole  duty,  in  the  councils  of  the 
Government,  must  look  upon  the  whole  country  as  it  is,  in  its  whole  length 
and  breadth.  He  must  comprehend  it  in  its  vast  extent,  its  novel  character, 
its  sudden  development,  its  amazing  progress,  confounding  all  calculations,  and 
almost  overwhelming  the  imagination.  —  Webster. 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1888. 


Copyright,  1887, 
By  E.  a.  Barrows. 


John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 
INTRODUCTION vii 

Chaptek 

I.  How  Large  is  the  West  ? 9 

II.  Surprising  Distances  in  the  United  States  18 

III.  The  Six  Growths  of  the  United  States     .  27 

IV.  Growth  in  Settlements 42 

V.  Ancient  Chicago 53 

YI.  The  "Great  American  Desert"     ....    93 
VII.   Large  Landholdings  in  the  United  States  .  138 

VIII.   Wild  Life  on  the  Border 169 

IX.  Pioneering  in  Education 200 

X.  Lynch  Law 221 

XL  Eastern    Jealousy    and    Neglect    of    the 

West 263 

XII.   The  Railway  System  of  the  West      .     .     .  314 

XIII.  The  Empire  of  the  Future 355 

XIV.  Conclusion 404 

INDEX 421 


INTRODUCTION. 


'T^HIS  book  has  been  written  to  answer  ques- 
-^  tions.  As  the  author  in  earlier  days  liad 
spent  several  years  beyond  the  Mississippi,  and 
much  time  and  travel  there  since  in  official  work, 
during  which  he  made  ten  tours  over  the  border, 
and  in  the  East  had  devoted  much  labor  to  public 
addresses  and  lectures  on  our  new  country,  it  was 
quite  natural  that  a  miscellaneous  information 
should  be  solicited  from  him  concerning  the  terri- 
tory between  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Pacific. 

For  various  reasons  it  has  seemed  best  to  let 
this  information  group  itself  into  topics,  and  so  it 
stands  classified  under  headings  and  in  chapters. 

If  it  seem  that  many  authors  have  been  cited 
or  quoted,  with  volume  and  page  given,  the  reason 
is  obvious.  They  were  better  informed  on  the 
matters  in  hand  than  the  writer,  and  therefore 
support  his  statements  and  observations  with  a 
wider  authority. 


Vm  INTRODUCTION. 

The  author  hopes  that  the  candid  reader  will 
not  allow  the  magnitude  of  some  of  the  facts  and 
statements  to  mar  their  credibility.  Such  vast- 
ness  must  be  both  expected  and  tolerated  in 
speaking  faithfully  of  a  domain  much  larger 
than  all  Europe,  whose  growth  in  all  the  ele- 
ments of  a  nation  has  been  without  precedent 
or  parallel. 

WILLIAM   BARROWS. 
Reading,  Mass., 

October,  1887. 


THE   UNITED   STATES 


OF 


YESTERDAY   AND    OF   TO-MORROW. 


CHAPTER  I. 

HOW   LARGE   IS   "  THE   WEST  "  ? 

NEAR  the  close  of  the  last  century  France 
was  making  wonderful  growth  in  imperial 
territory  and  power.  Her  increase  M-as  so  great 
and  convulsive  as  to  jar  every  throne  in  Europe. 
Edmund  Burke  anxiously  turned  the  attention 
of  Great  Britain  to  her  colossal  rival,  and  spoke 
of  ambitious  France  as  "  something  which  awed 
and  commanded  the  imagination." 

How  large,  territorially,  would  the  France  of  to- 
day be  in  this  country  ?  Suppose  Texas  to  be  a 
circular  lake  and  France  a  circular  island ;  the 
island  could  be  anchored  centrally  in  the  lake 
out  of  sight  of  land,  twent3-two  miles  from  any 
point  on  the  encircling  shore.  The  vastness  of 
this  State  of  Texas  —  equal  to  the  capacity  of 
England  five  times,  and  of  Massachusetts  thirty- 


10  now   LARGE   IS   "  THE    WEST  "  ? 

four — is  not  so  very  much  overstated  by  the 
bold  figure  of  Mr.  Webster  iu  his  7th  of  March 
Speech :  "  So  vast  that  a  bird  caunot  fly  over  it 
in  a  week."  One  accurate  statement  in  arithmet- 
ical figures  is  so  startling  as  at  first  to  provoke 
an  honest  disbelief.  Nevertheless  it  is  true  that 
if  the  entire  living  population  of  the  globe  — 
fourteen  hundred  millions  —  were  divided  into 
families  of  five  persons  each,  all  tliose  families 
could  be  located  in  Texas,  each  family  having  a 
house-lot  of  half  an  acre,  and  then  leave  more 
than  seventy  millions  of  family  lots  untaken.^ 

Such  surprises  are  constantly  recurring  if  one 
follows  up  an  ordinary  school  geography  with 
questions  of  comparison.  In  the  days  of  the  con- 
troversy with  England  over  Oregon,  some  thought 
it  too  small  an  item  for  so  great  a  peril  of  the  peace 
and  blood  of  the  two  countries.  The  item  puts 
on  ampler  and  more  important  extent  and  issue 
to-day,  when  our  portion  of  the  territory  then 
in  dispute  —  Oregon,  Washington  Territory,  and 
Idaho  —  is  equal  in  extent  to  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  twice  told,  with  a  remnant  nearly  as  large 
as  Connecticut. 

If  Colorado  M^ere  crowded  into  the  map  of 
Europe  it  would  crowd  out  almost  as  much  as 
Belgium,  the  Netherlands,  Portugal,  Switzerland, 
Greece,   and   Wales.      If   we    were  able  to  take 

1  We  have  followed  Donaldson  as  to  the  area  of  Texas  = 
274,356  sc[uare  miles. 


HOW    LARGE   IS   "THE    WEST"?  H 

iinuiigraiton  of  acres,  and  nationally,  we  could 
locate  in  Dakota,  acre  for  acre.  Great  Britain,  Ire- 
land, Belgium,  and  the  Netherlands. 

Suppose  a  parallelogram  be  made  to  corner  on 
Milwaukee,  with  a  line  due  west  to  tlie  Pacific, 
and  by  the  ocean  shore  north  to  our  northwestern 
corner,  and  thence  on  our  boundary  line  due  east, 
and  to  Lake  Superior  and  down  to  the  point  of 
starting,  —  that  enclosure,  being  about  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty-seven  miles  by  seventeen  hundred 
and  fifty-six,  would  cut  up  into  one  hundred  and 
twenty-nine  Connecticuts. 

Yet  another  illustration  from  that  region  will 
serve  to  impress  on  us  the  magnitude  of  our 
interior  and  Western  areas.  In  1864  Abraham 
Lincoln  signed  th.e  bill  granting  the  Northern 
Pacific  Eailroad.  As  a  trunk  road  it  might  be 
assumed  to  open  up  a  belt  of  wild  laud  four  hun- 
dred miles  wide  and  eighteen  hundred  long.  This 
amount  of  unsettled  country  the  charter  proposed 
to  take  from  its  prehistoric  occupants  —  Indians 
and  buffaloes  —  and  give  it  to  agriculture,  manu- 
factures, commerce,  schoolhouses  and  churches, 
voters  and  jurors.  That  belt  would  contain  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  and  Ireland ;  Spain  and  Portugal ; 
Belgium  and  the  Netherlands ;  Norway,  Den- 
mark, Sweden,  and  eight  Palestines.  And  yet  the 
most  eastern  depot  of  that  road  is  fifteen  hundred 
miles  west  of  New  England  tide-water.  A  man 
visits  those  eleven  States  of  the  Old  World,  and  is 


12  HOW   LAKGE    IS   "  THE   WEST  "  ? 

gone  a  year  on  the  long  tour,  and  after  liis  return 
he  perhaps  lectures  or  publishes  a  book  on  his 
travels.  The  next  generation  may  travel  as  far 
in  the  cars  on  that  belt  and  see  as  many  marvels 
of  growth  as  he  would  hoary  wonders  abroad,  and 
not  leave  home. 

It  may  enhance  the  force  of  this  illustration  of 
area  to  add  that  the  amount  of  land  granted  to 
this  road  by  the  Government  in  its  original  char- 
ter was  equal  to  all  New  England  and  an  extra 
Massachusetts. 

Probably  few  Americans,  even  scholarly  ones, 
and  certainly  very  few  of  those  whose  benevolence 
works  in  the  extension  of  education  and  Chris- 
tianity for  the  world,  realize  how  much  the  Amer- 
ican Union  was  enlarged  by  the  Mexican  War  and 
the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  that  closed  it  in 
1848,  and  the  Gadsden  Purchase.  That  treaty  for- 
mally included  and  conceded  Texas,  previously  an- 
nexed, and  the  total  addition  to  the  territory  of 
the  United  States  was  equal  to  one  hundred  and 
four  States  as  large  as  Massachusetts ;  it  was  one 
hundred  and  fifty  times  larger  than  the  Holy 
Land  of  Israel,  the  Palestine  of  marvellous  record. 
Patriotism,  philanthropy,  and  Christianity  have 
been  singularly  tardy  in  going  in  where  our  sword 
went  out ;  and  the  most  of  this  land  has  won  but 
little  interest,  though  under  our  own  flag,  com- 
pared with  the  interest  given  by  us  to  lands 
under  the  Crescent,  and  to  the  territory  and  home 


now   LARGE   IS   "THE   WEST"?  13 

missionary  fields  of  the  English  Crown.  It  is 
one  of  the  peculiarities  of  benevolence  in  the 
United  States,  that  so  much  of  the  foreign  field 
of  the  American  church  is  the  home  field  of  the 
British  Crown  and  of  the  Established  Church  of 
England. 

I  shall  never  recover  from  the  overwhelming 
impressions  of  the  vastness  of  our  great  valley 
lying  between  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Eocky 
Mountains,  as  they  came  on  me  when  I  first  went 
down  the  eastern  slope  of  it.  It  was  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1840,  when  our  steamer  swung  into  the 
Ohio  at  Guyandotte,  and  we  were  seven  days  of 
fair  running  to  St.  Louis.  Current  and  steam  for 
a  week  to  go  down  one  side  of  this  valley !  Since 
then  I  have  seen  more  of  it,  and  only  to  deepen 
the  thought  of  its  immensity.  Its  northern  rim  is 
perpetually  fringed  by  arctic  lichens  and  mosses 
and  firs  around  their  ice-beds,  and  its  southern  is 
perpetually  fragrant  with  the  rose  and  magnolia 
and  orange-blossom. 

If  you  are  familiar  mainly  \A'ith  the  valley 
of  the  Thames  or  Tweed  or  Merrimac  or  Hudson, 
struggle  a  moment  with  your  fancy  to  measure  this 
great  valley  of  a  continent.  As  aid  and  stepping- 
stones,  recall  your  reading  of  Roman  history  when 
that  Empire  had  its  greatest  extent.  Consider 
how  beyond  the  horizon  in  all  directions  Eoman 
legions  swarmed,  capturing  the  great  cities  of  the 
world    and    then    returning   to   the  Eternal  City 


14  now   LARGE   IS   "  THE   WEST  "  ? 

leading  processions  of  kings  and  nobles  as  cap- 
tives and  suitors.  Yet  this  valley  bas  capacity 
for  tbe  entire  lloman  Empire  in  tbe  days  of  its 
broadest  expanse,  and  half  another !  Tiie  sword 
of  a  CjBsar  could  never  point  so  far  over  ter- 
ritory it  claimed  and  awed  as  tlie  peaceful  band 
of  an  American  President  is  extended  to  receive 
tbe  votes  and  congratulations  of  the  Itepublic. 
Gibbon  gives  tbe  greatest  area  of  the  Eoman 
Empire  at  1,000,000  square  miles,  and  our  valley 
is  2,450,000. 

Europe  is  cut  up  into  twenty  areas,  with  as 
many  governments.  They  range  from  imperial 
Eussia  to  tlie  principality  of  Monaco,  embracing 
six  square  miles,  —  about  one  fourth  of  the  extent 
of  a  Yankee  township.  The  twenty,  realms  of 
Europe,  the  entire  continent,  could  be  located 
within  the  United  States,  and  then  there  would 
remain  uncovered  all  New  England,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  and  West 
Virginia.  This  statement  will  not  surprise  any 
one  who  considers  that  the  United  States  is  nine- 
teen times  larger  than  France,  twenty  times  larger 
than  Spain,  and  seventy-eight  times  larger  than 
England. 

Our  Pacific  margin  is  worthy  of  measuring  and 
considering  by  one  who  would  speak  correctly 
of  the  West.  Its  exact  length,  according  to  tbe 
United  States  Coast  Survey,  from  the  corner  post 
on    Mexico    to    British   Columbia,  is    seventeen 


HOW   LAKGE   IS    "  THE   WEST  "  ■?  15 

hundred  and  forty-three  miles,  measuring  and 
reckoning  in,  as  is  usual  in  such  work,  coast 
indentations.  The  shore  line  of  the  Territory  of 
Alaska,  measured  from  headland  to  headland, 
without  regard  to  coast  indentations  and  exclu- 
sive of  all  islands  off  the  coast  and  beyond  Ooni- 
mak  Pass,  is  forty-three  hundred  and  sixty-five 
statute  miles.  This  includes  the  northern  or  Arc- 
tic coast  line  beyond  Behriug  Strait  and  up  past 
Point  Barrow  to  Demarcation  Point.  Here  is  a 
United  States  coast  line  of  sixty-one  hundred  and 
eight  statute  miles ;  and  its  extent  will  be  more 
justly  estimated  in  comparison  with  the  total  At- 
lantic coast  line  of  Europe,  which  is  only  eighty- 
four  hundred  and  eighty  miles. 

This  coast  fact  contrasts  strikingly,  and  for  the 
United  States  pleasantly,  with  the  very  English 
assumption  and  prediction  of  Sir  George  Simpson 
in  his  narrative  of  "  A  Journey  Pound  the  World 
in  1841-42."  The  Oregon  Question  was  then 
warming  toward  its  conclusion,  and  Sir  George, 
Governor  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  doubled 
his  cruise  on  the  northwest  coasts  in  his  interests 
in  fur  and  English  dominion.  Evidently  feeling 
and  fearing  the  rivalry  of  the  United  States  on 
that  coast,  and  having  said  that  our  acquisition 
of  Louisiana  "  nursed  into  life  the  marauder's  plea 
of  contiguity,"  he  proceeds  to  add :  "  The  United 
States  will  never  possess  more  than  a  nominal 
jurisdiction,  nor  long  possess  even  that,  on  the 


16  HOW   LARGE   IS   "  THE   WEST  "  ? 

west  side  of  the  Eocky  Mountains  ;  and  supposing 
the  country  to  be  divided  to-morrow  to  the  entire 
satisfaction  of  the  most  unscrupulous  patriot  in 
the  Union,  I  challenge  Congress  to  bring  my  pre- 
diction and  its  power  to  the  test  by  imposing  the 
Atlantic  tariff  on  the  posts  of  the  Pacific.  .  .  . 
England  and  llussia,  whether  as  friends  or  foes, 
cannot  fail  to  control  the  destiny  of  the  human 
race,  for  good  or  for  evil,  to  an  extent  which  com- 
paratively confines  every  other  nation  within  the 
scanty  limits  of  its  own  proper  locality." 

This  cannot  now  be  so  interesting  reading  to  the 
English  and  to  Hudson's  Bay  men,  when  Eussia 
has  sold  out  wholly  in  the  northwest  of  America 
to  the  United  States,  and  England  holds  there  only 
about  three  hundred  miles  of  sea-coast,  while  the 
United  States  owns  sixty-one  hundred  and  eight. 

Some  are  unconscious  of  the  vast  area  of  our 
country,  and  so  are  in  an  amusing  fault  some- 
times and  provincial  when  putting  the  "West" 
nigh  at  hand,  and  great  cities  and  sections  in  it 
near  together. 

In  his  "  Famous  Americans  "  Parton  thus  speaks 
of  Webster :  "  He  liked  large  things,  —  mountains, 
elms,  great  oaks,  mighty  bulls  and  oxen,  wide 
fields,  the  ocean,  the  Union,  and  all  things  of  mag- 
nitude. He  liked  great  Eome  far  better  than  re- 
fined Greece,  and  revelled  in  the  immense  things 
of  literature,  such  as  '  Paradise  Lost '  and  the  Book 
of  Job,  Burke,  Dr.  Johnson,  and  the  Sixth  Book  of 


HOW   LARGE   IS   "  THE   WEST  "  '?  17 

the  ^neid."  Herein  lies  a  broad  hint  that  geog- 
raphy as  well  as  law  gave  Webster  stimulus  in  liis 
marvellous  and  varied  defence  of  the  American 
Union.  He  rose  to  the  height  of  his  great  argu- 
ment under  continental  as  well  as  constitutional 
inspirations.  In  making  up  great  Americans  much 
use  must  be  made  of  American  geography.  In 
our  vastness  of  realm  there  is  much  danger  that 
the  East-  and  the  West  and  the  North  and  the 
South  will  produce  provincial  men. 


18  DISTANCES   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SURPllISING   DISTANCES   IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

"  T  TOW  far  is  it  to  Chicago?"  Our  young 
-L  J.  English  friend  made  the  inquiry  when 
that  city  was  suggested  as  convenient  headquarters 
while  he  might  be  running  up  and  down  the 
country  on  a  tour  of  observation.  When  the 
answer  was  given,  "  Something  over  a  thousand 
miles,"  he  was  amazed ;  for  he  was  fresh  from 
England,  whose  longest  meridian  diameter  is  only 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  statute  miles,  from 
Berwick  to  St.  Alban's  Head,  and  whose  narrowest 
measure  is  sixty-two,  from  the  head  of  the  Solway 
to  Wandsbeck  on  the  German  Ocean. 

Perhaps  it  is  expecting  too  much  that  one  should 
know  tolerably  the  travelled  lengths  and  breadths 
in  his  own  United  States ;  and  indeed  it  would  be 
expecting  a  great  deal.  Yet  if  one  has  completed 
a  course  of  common-school  or  higher  study,  and 
can  give  a  fair  analysis  of  any  one  of  Dickens's 
novels,  or  outline  the  status  of  the  unfinished 
stories  in  the  magazines,  or  give  the  prices  on 
stocks  or  at  the  best  hotels  in  Europe,  one  has  a 
right  to  expect  that  he  can  locate  leading  cities  in 


DISTANCES   IN   THE   UNITED    STATES.  19 

the  Union  within  a  thousand  miles  of  their  true 
position. 

When  I  once  spoke  to  an  intelligent  friend 
of  having  been  recently  in  Omaha,  he  inquired, 
with  all  the  simplicity  of  one  of  Mark  Twain's 
Innocents  Abroad,  "  Well,  did  you  see  the  Mor- 
mons ? "  He  was  surprised  that  I  had  not  "  run 
out"  to  Salt  Lake  City,  "just  back  of  Omaha," 
to  interview  those  peculiar  Saints.  My  answer 
surprised  him  more,  —  that  having  seen  that  whole 
conglomerate  when  they  constituted  Nauvoo,  this 
side  the  Mississippi,  I  did  not  care  to  go  a  thou- 
sand miles  out  of  my  way  to  visit  Salt  Lake  City. 
"A  thousand  miles !  Why,  I  thought  it  was  just 
back  of  Omaha  ! "  "  It  is  just  back,  as  they  say 
out  West,  where  there  is  room  to  say  such  things." 
His  question  was  as  if  one  had  proposed  some 
morning,  in  Boston,  to  run  down  to  Fort  Sumter 
and  see  the  ruins,  or  to  run  up  from  London 
to  Stockholm,  or  down  to  Rome,  in  a  cheap  and 
temporary  curiosity ;  for  the  distances  in  these 
cases  are  the  same. 

Parties  start  from  Bangor  overland  for  San 
Francisco,  and  the  most  of  them  are  surprised  to 
learn  that  when  at  St.  Louis  they  will  be  only  about 
one  third  of  their  journey.  Yet  then  they  have 
travelled  as  far  as  from  Washington  to  Teluian- 
tepec,  air  line,  or  from  London,  by  water,  to  St. 
Petersburg.  The  completed  trip  is  half  a  thousand 
more  miles  than  from  Loudon  to  Monrovia,  Africa. 


20  DISTANCES  IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

Such  parties  may  well  be  grateful  that  they  were 
not  called  to  the  excursion  in  old  emigrant  times. 

The  trip  to  Oregon  in  those  days  is  suggestive 
of  distances  and  discomforts  too,  —  from  the  sea- 
board to  St.  Louis  (about  fifteen  hundred  miles), 
and  thence,  with  the  comforts  of  a  Missouri 
steamer,  four  hundred  and  fifty  more  to  Westport. 
Here  come  the  overhauling  and  packing  and 
starting  of  the  families  and  wagons  and  herds 
for  Fort  Hall,  thirteen  hundred  and  twenty-three 
miles  farther,  through  wild  lands  and  wilder 
Indian  tribes.  This  Fort  Hall  was  on  the  Lewis 
Fork  of  the  Columbia,  about  one  hundred  miles 
north  of  Salt  Lake,  a  trading-post  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company,  and  for  a  long  time  their  Gibraltar 
against  the  entrance  of  the  American  traders  and 
immigrants  into  Oregon.  From  this  post,  of  so 
mucli  historic  interest  in  frontier  affairs,  to  Van- 
couver, another  English  trading-post  and  fort,  was 
eight  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  then  down  the 
Columbia  to  the  sea  ninety,  —  a  total  of  more  than 
four  thousand  miles.  Thus  hardy  and  noble  men 
and  women  went  over  the  continent  and  founded 
Oregon. 

The  impression  is  common,  and  not  altogether 
unnatural,  that  on  the  northwest  coast  American 
cities  and  business  centres  lie  quite  closely  to- 
gether. Yet  from  Vancouver,  where  the  Columbia 
is  a  mile  wide,  though  at  that  point  ninety  miles 
from  its  mouth,  it  is  six  hundred  miles  up  to  Fort 


DISTANCES  IN  THE   UNITED   STATES.  21 

Colville ;  and  from  San  Francisco  to  Sitka,  tlie 
capital  of  our  last  purchase,  it  is  twelve  liundred 
and  ninety-six  miles,  —  as  far  as  from  New  York 
to  Havana. 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1870,  —  the  Kansas 
Pacific  had  been  opened  through  to  Denver  the 
summer  before,  —  and  I  was  passing  New  Fort 
Hays  on  Big  Creek.  The  willows  marked  the 
watercourse  as  their  line  disappeared  in  the  in- 
finite prairie,  and  the  conductor  advised  me  to 
take  a  good  look  at  those  willows,  if  I  were  pleased 
with  woodland  views,  for  it  would  be  a  long  time 
before  I  should  see  more  trees.  We  ran  west  to 
Denver,  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  without 
passing  tree  or  shrub  as  large  as  a  currant-bush 
or  fair-sized  switch  for  a  needy  boy.  To  a  New 
Englander,  where  the  farms  appear  to  a  Western 
man  as  snug  gardens  walled  in,  this  seemed  a 
large  pasture.  The  clumsy  buffalo-herds  tumbled 
off  right  and  left  like  the  waves  of  a  chopped 
sea,  and  timid  graceful  antelopes,  in  little  bands, 
would  run  parallel  to  the  cars,  and  neck  and  neck, 
for  three  or  four  miles,  in  their  triplet  leaps,  and 
as  airy  and  easy  as  thistle-down  on  the  wind. 
Acres  of  prairie  dogs  would  stand  like  kangaroos 
to  make  observations  on  us,  dodge  down  through 
the  openings  in  the  tops  of  their  beehive  mounds, 
and  instantly  show  head  and  neck  again  for  a  new 
look.  As  twilight  approached  over  the  grassy  and 
rolling  expanse,  gangs  of  coyotes  would  settle  back 


22  DISTANCES   IN   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

on   their  haunches  beyond  rifle  range,  and  with 
stretched  neck  and  wolfish  manner  howl  at  us. 

At  Salina,  where  we  spent  the  night,  the  stock- 
men gave  us  some  most  impressive  ideas  of 
distances  in  tliat  immense  interior.  Salina,  with 
Brookville  a  dozen  miles  away,  was  then  the 
nearest  and  great  shipping-point  for  live-stock 
from  that  unfenced  and  infinite  Southwest.  The 
estimate  for  Salina  that  season  was  seventy  thou- 
sand head.  The  owners,  purchasers,  and  cow- 
boys made  that  a  lively  night  at  the  lonely 
station.  We  arrived  in  the  evening,  and  the 
morning  revealed  the  little  shanty  cluster  of 
railroad  buildings  as  a  St.  Helena  in  an  unlim- 
ited expanse  of  grass.  In  all  directions  were 
masses  of  cattle,  like  islands  outlying  far  to  sea. 
Making  questions,  and  notes  too,  of  numbers  and 
weights  and  girths  and  prices,  I  began  to  ask 
about  the  distances  that  some  of  the  herds  had 
been  driven.  Pointing  to  different  ones  with  my 
questions,  the  answers  came  back  easily  and  care- 
lessly, as  if  a  few  hundred  miles  in  the  saddle  for 
the  cow-boy  were  a  slight  matter :  "  Four  hundred 
miles  ; "  "  Six  hundred  and  more ; "  "  From  Beck's 
rancho  on  the  Pecos,  about  six  hundred  ;  "  "  Well, 
Fort  Ringgold  way,  on  the  Rio  Grande,  nigh  on 
to  nine  hundred."  Amazed  at  these  replies,  I 
said :  "  Why,  how  far  do  you  drive  cattle  here  ? " 
"  Stranger,  that  herd  this  away  yonder  has  come 
a  right  smart  thousand.     Six  months  on  the  trail, 


DISTANCES   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES.  23 

and  the  Redskins  touched  them  at  a  levy  a  head 
for  crossing  the  Indian  Territory." 

This  was  the  nearest  route,  in  1870,  for  those 
ranchmen  on  the  dim  borders  of  American  life 
and  civilization  as  they  started  their  Texan  or 
New  Mexican  steers  for  the  New  York  market. 
It  was  as  if  Webster's  fat  oxen  were  driv^en  on  the 
higliway  from  Franklin  or  INIarshfield  to  Chicago, 
and  thence  taken  seven  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
by  cars,  that  they  might  furnish  the  sirloin  of  the 
merry  king  who  gave  the  name  to  it. 

From  those  more  southern  and  southwestern 
grazing-grounds  the  ranchmen  started  their  herds 
for  the  North  on  the  tender  grass  of  January,  and 
kept  pace  with  the  travelling  spring,  and  so  came 
upon  the  cattle-trains  at  Salina  in  early  summer. 
But  now,  with  the  locomotive  at  San  Antonio, 
Santa  F^,  TuQon,  and  Fort  Yuma,  the  steers  are 
ticketed  through,  and  find  a  much  easier  and 
speedier  way  to  the  slaughter.  So  soon  following 
in  the  trail  of  buffalo  and  antelope  have  come 
compass  and  chain  and  warrantee  deeds,  and  farms 
and  city  plots  ;  acres  of  prairie  dogs  have  been 
ploughed  in  for  so  much  wheat  to  the  acre  ;  and 
planted  groves  break  the  monotonous  and  treeless 
expanse,  and  throw  grateful  shade  over  frolicking 
children,  and  anvils  so  musical  of  thrift,  and  over 
family  altars  so  prophetic  and  insuring  of  "  what- 
soever things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  hon- 
est, whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things 


24  DISTANCES   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  and  what- 
soever things  are  of  good  report." 

The  time  is  not  far  gone  by  when  similar 
prairies,  smaller  and  more  broken  by  timber,  held 
their  primitive  sway  between  Chicago  and  Cairo. 
When  in  the  saddle  in  early  days  on  those  plains, 
and  often  without  a  trail,  and  only  a  compass  for 
a  guide,  another  horseman  like  myself  could  be 
seen  for  hours  before  our  converging  lines  brought 
us  within  hail,  like  two  ships  speaking  each  other 
in  mid-ocean.  Pleasant  memories  linger  still 
around  our  deer-camp  on  the  edge,  or  rather  in 
the  suburbs,  of  Girard  City.  Probably  it  is  larger 
now ;  but  then  it  consisted  of  a  huge  pile  of 
crumbling  brick,  a  roofless  log-cabin,  and  rows  of 
stakes  running  off  very  regularly  into  the  prairie. 
The  deer  jumped  them  easily  as  they  struck  out 
across  five  denominational  church-lots,  the  court- 
house grounds,  and  the  college  square.  The  city 
was  peopled  with  the  fancies  of  Eastern  specu- 
lators and  owners  of  blocks  and  corner  lots,  with 
now  and  then  a  living  man  as  a  spectator  of 
prospects. 

In  planning  an  easy  and  interesting  tour  into 
the  West  seven  years  ago,  he  of  the  Eastern  sea- 
board would  naturally  and  very  properly  wish  to 
see  three  of  the  most  interesting  cities  in  the  upper 
interior,  —  St.  Louis,  Chicago,  and  St.  Paul.  Yet 
how  many  would  arrange  for  more  than  a  thousand 
miles  of  travel  in  completing  the  triangle  of  the 


DISTANCES   IX   THE    UNITED   STATES.  25 

three  ?  In  the  order  named  the  distances  by  rail 
would  be  280,  420,  and  3G8  miles,  —  now  very 
much  less. 

Our  railroad  from  Chicago  to  San  Francisco  is 
about  twenty-tliree  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and 
the  daily  trains  starting  out  from  each  terminus 
with  full  coaches  indicate  that  the  road  is  an 
American  necessity.  The  distance  traversed  by 
it  will  be  better  understood  by  a  European  and 
by  those  Americans  who  travel  mainly  in  foreign 
lands,  and  so  the  United  States  will  be  more  intel- 
ligently measured  if  we  take  this  road  to  Europe 
for  a  measuring  illustration.  Suppose,  therefore, 
that  we  place  the  Chicago  terminus  on  London  as 
a  turn-table,  and  sweep  the  road  round,  as  the 
hand  on  the  dial  of  a  clock,  and  thus  see  where 
the  San  Francisco  terminus  would  rest.  For  con- 
venience, an  air  line  is  assumed  between  its  two 
real  termini  and  between  the  illustrating  ones  that 
are  about  to  be  named.  Giving  it  a  northerly 
direction  from  London,  its  San  Francisco  terminus 
will  rest  in  the  extreme  north  of  Iceland,  Moving 
off  to  the  right,  it  will  extend  almost  to  the  head  of 
the  Gulf  of  Bothnia,  and  just  reach  St.  Petersburg, 
opening  communication  between  those  two  grand 
capitals  in  air  line,  as  the  crow  flies.  One  third 
of  the  Black  Sea  will  be  shadowed  by  the  moving 
index  which,  passing  on,  cuts  its  circle  midway 
through  the  deserts  of  Barca  and  Sahara  and  enters 
the  Atlantic  among  the  Canary  Islands.    Thence,  in 


26  DISTANCES   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

its  home  curve,  taking  in  the  Azores  and  two  thirds 
of  the  Atlantic  between  London  and  Newfoundland, 
it  will  close  its  circle  in  northern  Iceland. 

On  this  topic  of  distances  within  the  dominion 
of  the  United  States  we  introduce  but  one  more 
illustration  to  aid  the  fancy  in  finding  facts. 
If  one  will  take  an  air  line  from  Quoddy  Head, 
in  Lubec,  the  most  eastern  point  of  Maine,  to  tlie 
mouth  of  the  Straits  of  San  Juan  de  Fuca,  where 
they  empty  into  tlie  Pacific  on  the  southern  coast 
of  Vancouver,  he  will  find  that  he  is  on  the  true 
air  line  to  the  most  western  of  the  Aleutian  Islands. 
The  line  thus  indicated  measures  the  distance 
between  tlie  extreme  eastern  and  western  points 
of  United  States  territory.  Not  speaking  exactly 
as  if  casting  the  transit  of  Venus,  tlie  half-way 
point  in  this  line  is  about  two  hundred  miles  to 
the  west  of  the  mouth  of  these  straits  on  the 
Pacific  coast.  So  far,  therefore,  beyond  Vancouver 
one  must  go  "  out  West "  before  he  will  be  half- 
way over  the  American  limits.  After  leaving 
Maine  on  this  air  line  he  will  trespass  on  the 
Queen's  dominion  till  he  arrive  at  Eainy  Lake, 
above  Lake  Superior,  beyond  which  till  he  enter 
Pacific  waters  he  will  be  on  American  soil. 


THE   SIX   GROWTHS    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       27 


CHAPTEE  III. 

THE   SIX   GROWTHS   OF   THE   UNITED    STATES. 

"  T  NEED  not  remark  to  you  that  the  flank  and  rear  of 
X  the  United  States  are  possessed  by  other  powers, 
and  formidable  ones  too.  ...  If  the  Spaniards  on 
their  right  and  Great  Britain  on  their  left,  instead  of 
throwing  stumbling-blocks  in  their  way,  as  they  now 
do,  should  hold  out  lures  for  their  trade  and  alliance  ! 
When  they  gain  strength,  which  Avill  be  sooner  than 
most  people  conceive.  .  .  .  The  Western  States  hang 
upon  a  pivot;  the  touch  of  a  feather  would  turn  them 
any  way." 

Thus  wrote  Washington  to  Governor  Harrison 
of  Virginia  in  1784,  after  he  had  made  a  tour 
of   the  border  over  the  Alleghanies. 

Of  course,  increase  of  territory  by  the  United 
States  was  indispensable,  inevitable,  and  irresisti- 
ble. "To  have  more  land  "ran  in  English  blood, 
and  through  the  colonial  veins  into  tlie  body  politic 
of  the  infant  Eepublic.  The  English  fathers  had 
crowded  back  the  Spanish,  in  their  arrogant  claims, 
from  Virginia  to  Florida,  and  the  Dutch  from  New 
York,  and  the  French  from  the  continent.  In 
1754,  and  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-two.  Colonel 


28      THE   SIX   GROWTHS    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

Washington  planted  the  first  British  banner  oil 
the  Western  waters,  and  in  the  still  struggling 
days  of  the  Eepublic  the  region  beyond  the  Ohio 
of  the  Upper  jMississippi  was  organized  into  the 
"  County  of  Illinois,  State  of  Virginia."  So  early 
the  new-born  Eepublic  took  possession  where  the 
mother  country  had  driven  out  the  French  for 
quite  another  purpose  a  few  years  before. 

This  inherited  Saxon  hunger  for  land  showed 
itself  signally  when  the  colonies  and  their  allies 
and  the  mother  country  met  to  adjust  boundary 
lines  after  the  Eevolution.  Spain  would  exclude 
the  Eepublic  from  the  Lower  Mississippi,  and  she 
drew  from  Franklin  the  sharp  remark :  "  Spain 
has  taken  four  years  to  consider  whether  she 
w^ould  treat  with  us  or  not.  Give  her  forty,  and 
let  us  in  the  mean  time  mind  our  own  business." 
In  his  excellent  "  History  of  the  Mississippi  "Val- 
ley," Monette  says  that  "  during  the  greater  part 
of  the  negotiations  preceding  the  treaty  Mr. 
Oswald,  the  British  commissioner,  persisted  in  his 
demands  that  the  Ohio  Eiver  should  form  the 
northwestern  boundary  of  the  United  States ;  and 
it  v/as  only  after  every  effort  had  failed  to  move 
Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Jay  that  he  consented  to 
adopt  the  present  boundary  through  the  middle 
of  the  Great  Lakes."  ^     As  conditions  of  peace  that 

1  History  of  the  Discovery  and  Settlement  of  the  Valley 
of  the  Mississippi.  By  John  W.  Monette,  M.D.  In  two  vol- 
umes.    Vol.  ii.  pp.  212,  213. 


THE   SIX  GROWTHS   OF  THE  UNITED   STATES.      29 

could  not  be  departed  from,  Franklin  named  tlie 
Great  Lakes  and  the  Mississippi  as  boundaries,  and 
in  reply  to  the  diplomatic  Vergennes,  who  was 
urging  the  demands  of  Spain,  Jay  said  :  "  We  shall 
be  content  with  no  boundaries  short  of  the  Missis- 
sippi." At  times  when  Oswald  the  Scotchman  so 
insisted  that  the  boundary  should  be  the  watershed 
that  separates  the  streams  for  the  Atlantic  from 
those  for  the  lakes  and  the  great  valley,  it  did 
seem  as  if  they  might  adjourn  the  dispute  to  a 
second  Yorktown. 

Of  course  such  a  people,  when  their  new  gov- 
ernment was  tolerably  consolidated,  would  find 
increase  of  territory  not  only  desirable  but  indis- 
pensable, especially  if  adjoining  lands  were  lying 
in  a  wild  and  crude  state. 

The  temptation  and  necessity  and  offer  were  not 
long  in  coming.  The  United  States  of  1783  owned 
no  acre  of  land  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  or  beyond 
the  Mississippi,  nor  a  rood  on  the  entire  eastern 
bank  of  the  Mississippi  below  latitude  thirty-one, 
near  the  mouth  of  Eed  Eiver,  After  the  fatal  fall 
of  France  in  North  America  on  the  Plains  of 
Abraham,  she  secretly  conveyed  to  Spain  the 
western  half  of  the  great  valley,  that  it  might  not 
fall  into  English  hands  —  as  the  eastern  half  did 
and  very  much  other  territory  —  at  the  coming 
council  table.  Overrun  by  explorers,  cavaliers,  and 
marauders,  and  with  few  settlements  and  a  starve- 
ling  development,  it  furnished   a  poor   national 


30      THE   SIX   GROWTHS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

neighbor,  and  one  that  might  become  troublesome. 
For  a  working  hand  and  a  fostering  government 
great  possibilities  lay  beyond  that  river. 

In  1800  that  ancient  Louisiana  was  reconveyed 
to  France,  and  it  was  a  great  ambition  with 
Napoleon  to  plant  there  an  American-French  em- 
]jire.  A  code  of  government  was  drafted,  officers 
appointed,  and  an  army  of  twenty-five  thousand 
held  in  readiness  to  convey  the  whole  to  that 
valley.  But  Europe  was  too  stormy  and  English 
fleets  were  too  many ;  so  Napoleon  did  not  dare 
the  venture,  and  sold  the  magnificent  property  to 
the  United  States,  the  conveyance  being  in  1803. 

Very  much  of  what  we  now  call  "  out  West " 
lies  in  that  first  and  imperial  real-estate  invest- 
ment of  our  fathers ;  or,  as  Napoleon  said  to  Liv- 
ingstone, the  American  minister  :  "  A  magnificent 
bargain  ;  an  empire  for  a  mere  trifle."  The  "  trifle  " 
was  fifteen  million  dollars,  and  assumption  by  the 
United  States  of  the  claims  of  American  citizens 
for  French  spoliations  not  to  exceed  twenty  mil- 
lion francs.  The  franc  value  was  fixed  at  five 
livres  and  eight  sous  to  the  dollar.  Up  to  June 
30,  1880,  the  United  States  had  paid  for  those 
spoliations,  $3,738,268.98.  That  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase exceeded  the  original  area  of  the  Eepublic 
by  forty-five  States  like  Massachusetts,  if  we  con- 
cede that  it  extended  to  the  Pacific,  according  to 
Donaldson's  "  Public  Domain."  Beginning  on  the 
Mississippi,  the  boundary  ran  up  the  Eed  Piiver 


THE   SIX   GROWTHS    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES.       31 

from  its  mouth  to  what  is  now  the  southwestern 
corner  of  the  Indian  Territory,  thence  due  north 
to  the  Arkansas  and  up  to  its  head,  and  then  be- 
yond to  latitude  forty-two,  and  on  that  line  to 
the  Pacific,  following  the  Pacific  coast  to  latitude 
forty-nine,  and  on  that  parallel  eastward  to  the 
Lake  of  the  Woods,  and  thence  to  the  head  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  down  that  river  to  the  starting- 
point.i  It  will  be  noted  that  this  embraced  all 
that  the  Government  owned  west  of  that  river 
prior  to  the  acquisition  of  Texas,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  southern  half  of  Louisiana.  The  origi- 
nal domain  of  the  Eepublic  was  equal  to  one 
hundred  and  two  States  as  large  as  Massachusetts. 
This  addition  was  equal  to  one  hundred  and  forty- 
seven,  or  forty-five  more  than  the  original. 

The  treaty  of  sale  was  signed  by  the  French 
Commissioners  April  30,  1803 ;  and  by  a  special 
Congress  convened  by  Jefferson  the  treaty  was 
ratified  October  19,  1803,  and  the  papers  of  ratifi- 
cation were  exchanged  October  21.  As  yet  the 
territory  had  not  been  formally  reconveyed  by 
Spain  to  France,  and  this  was  done  before  the 
City  Hall  in  New  Orleans  on  the  last  day  of  the 
November  following.  The  Spanish  flag  was  then 
slowly  lowered,  imder  a  salute  of  artillery,  and  the 
French  flag  was  run  up  in  the  same  way. 

The  French  now  held  again,  and    for  twenty 

^  Later  and  eminent  authorities  limit  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
on  the  West  by  the  Rocky  Mountains.     See  note,  page  32. 


32      THE   SIX   GROWTHS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

days,  this  "  empire."  JNIeanwhile  American  troops 
arrived,  and  on  the  20th  of  December  the  tri- 
colored  flag  of  France  slowly  descended,  meeting 
midway  the  rising  Stars  and  Stripes.  Salvos  of  ar- 
tillery and  shouts  of  the  people  were  followed  by 
the  band  with  "  Hail  Columbia,"  and  so  the  young 
Eepublic  with  that  music  started  for  the  Pacific. 

From  the  Louisiana  Purchase  we  have  all  of 
Alabama  west  of  the  Perdido  and  on  tlie  Gulf 
below  31°  north ;  all  of  Mississippi  west  of  Ala- 
bama, on  Louisiana  and  the  Gulf,  south  of  31° 
north  ;  Louisiana  ;  Arkansas  ;  Missouri ;  Kansas, 
all  but  the  southwest  corner ;  Iowa ;  Minnesota, 
all  of  it  west  of  the  Mississippi ;  Nebraska ;  all  of 
Colorado  east  of  the  Eocky  Mountains  and  north 
of  the  Arkansas  River ;  Oregon  ;  and  the  Territo- 
ries Dakota,  Montana,  Idaho,  Washington,  Wyo- 
ming, —  excepting  a  portion  in  the  southern  part, 
—  and  the  Indian  Territory.^ 

^  As  to  the  boundaries  and  area  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  I 
have  followed  "The  Ninth  Census,"  by  Francis  A.  Walker,  and 
"The  Public  Domain,"  by  Thomas  Donaldson.  In  the  Oregon 
controversy  with  Great  Britain  the  United  States  based  her 
claim  in  part  on  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  (Oregon  :  the  Strug- 
gle for  Possession.  By  William  Barrows.  Chaps,  xxi.  xxii., 
and  note  in  the  fourth  edition,  page  211.)  Greenhow  states 
quite  fully  the  opposite  opinion,  that  the  Louisiana  of  France 
and  of  Spain  and  of  the  United  States  Purchase  did  not  extend 
to  the  Pacific.  (The  History  of  Oregon  and  California.  By 
Kobert  Greenhow.  1846.  Chap.  xiii. )  It  is  still  a  question  sub 
lite  among  good  scholars.  Decision  either  Avay  will  not  vary  the 
statement  of  areas  above  given  for  the  national  domain. . 


THE   SIX   GROWTHS    OF   THE   UNITED    STATES.       33 

The  next  addition  to  the  domain  of  the  Union 
was  Florida,  —  an  area  of  seven  States  like  Mas- 
sachusetts, —  and  it  was  made  not  only  in  the 
interests  of  the  Kepublic,  but  of  humanity,  civil- 
ization, and  Christianity.  From  its  earliest  his- 
tory it  had  been  a  field  of  international  jealousy, 
struggle,  and  blood.  The  Spanish,  French,  Eng- 
lish, and  Indians  had  made  it  a  raiding-ground  for 
plunder,  conquest,  and  revenge.  It  was  in  miser- 
able condition,  undeveloping,  decivilizing,  and  bar- 
barous ;  a  prey  to  Indians,  negroes,  and  Sjianiards, 
and  subject  to  the  marauding  invasions  of  Euglish 
and  American  adventurers  till  it  came  into  the 
Union  by  the  treaty  of  Feb.  22,  1819.  Spain  was 
allowed  five  millions  of  purchase-money,  but  was 
charged  the  same  amount  for  Spanish  spoliations 
on  American  commerce. 

In  this  assumption  of  Florida  one  of  those  mer- 
cies was  shown  which  an  established  and  fostering 
government  is  able  to  bestow  on  a  people  and  re- 
gion struggling  through  a  natural  and  crude  state 
into  a  civilized  one.  From  1512,  when  Ponce  de 
Leon,  as  the  first  European,  began  with  cavaliers 
and  priests  to  flounder  through  its  everglades  and 
astonish  and  anger  its  simple  natives,  that  region 
was  without  government  or  development  or  much 
increase  of  population.  It  is  true,  wdien  her  flag 
was  lowered  at  St.  Augustine  for  the  American,  it 
had  floated  over  that  old  city  since  1565,  with 
intervals  of  omission ;  and  yet,  so  near  the  close 
3 


34      THE   SIX   GKOWTIIS    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  but  little  more 
land  was  occupied  tLan  at  the  beginning.  The 
interior  was  as  wild  as  ever,  and  the  total  Euro- 
pean jiopulalion  was  only  six  or  seven  thousand. 
Elsewhere  and  at  times  it  had  sported  English  and 
French  colors,  as  well  as  the  nameless  banners  of 
invaders  from  the  colonies  and  States  on  the  north. 
Generals  Gaines  and  Jackson,  for  the  American 
side,  mingled  at  last  in  the  fray  where  three  otlier 
nations  kept  up  discord  and  uncertainty ;  and 
finally  the  battle  was  closed  by  a  purchase  of 
tlie  field,  and  so  the  fruits  of  peace  came  under 
cultivation. 

The  case  of  Texas  did  not  vary  much  from  that 
of  Florida  in  its  civil  and  developing  condition. 
It  was  anotlier  unknown  section  of  the  N"ew 
World  overrun  by  discoverers,  invaders,  and  free- 
booters. For  long  generations  property,  person, 
and  conscience  had  but  faint  recognition,  and  its 
government  was  despotic,  insurrectionary,  or  revo- 
lutionary, as  suited  the  whim  of  the  place  and 
the  hour.  The  home  government  of  Mexico 
was  more  nominal  than  real  over  distant  Texas, 
and  this  border  territory  of  New  Spain  waited 
long  in  the  dawn  of  the  coming  day  from  the 
North.  Her  independent  entrance  into  the  Amer- 
ican Union  of  States  was  Dec.  29,  1845 ;  and 
her  formal  and  full  one  by  the  consent  of  INfex- 
ico  was  in  the  Treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo, 
Feb.  2,  1848,     A»d  so  the    equivalent  of  thirty- 


THE    SIX    GROWTHS    OF   THE    LWITED   STATES        35 

four    States  as   large   as    Massaeluisctts   enlarged 
the  Union. 

The  admission  of  Texas  into  the  American  Union 
was  a  case  of  mutual  favor,  and  in  the  long  re- 
sults as  seen  so  far,  and  in  the  failure  of  some 
provincial  schemes  then  warm  and  divisive,  the 
consequences  have  assumed  a  national  and  most 
gratifying  magnitude.  It  was  very  much  to  con- 
fer law  and  order  on  so  extensive  a  region  and  nat- 
urally so  rich  in  the  staples  that  are  the  basis  of 
national  wealth  ;  and  into  wluit  a  civil  chaos  our 
act  of  annexation  introduced  government  may  be 
inferred  from  one  fact.  At  the  date  of  admission 
it  was  an  open  question  whether  Texas  ought  not 
to  have  been  included  in  the  Florida  treaty  of  1819 
as  a  part  of  the  French  territory  of  Louisiana,  and 
some  of  our  statesmen  —  as  Benton  —  criticised 
others  —  as  Adams  and  Calhoun,  parties  to  the 
negotiation  of  the  Florida  treaty  —  for  not  then 
includintr  Texas  on  the  American  side  as  against 
Mexican  claims.  In  so  rude  a  condition  and  so 
little  removed  was  that  region  then  from  primi- 
tive nature,  that  even  its  nationality  was  a  mat- 
ter of  doubt  among  diplomatists  and  statesmen, 
although  it  assumed  independence  of  Mexico  in 
1835,  and  was  recognized  by  the  United  States 
in  1837.  To  these  inorganic  elements  additions 
had  been  made  by  emigrants  from  the  States, 
the  loss  of  many  of  whom  on  the  one  side  of 
the  boundary  and  gain  on  the  otlier  were  equally 


36      THE   SIX    GKOWTIIS    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

equivocal.  Texas  was  admitted  to  the  American 
Union  in  18-i5. 

The  addition  of  California  and  New  Mexico  to 
the  domain  of  the  United  States  was  but  an  elon- 
gation and  termination  of  the  Texan  scheme.  In 
the  logic  of  war,  and  especially  with  the  irre- 
pressible American  people  on  the  one  side  and 
the  Mexican  on  the  other,  the  addition  was  a 
result  inevitable,  and  indeed  foreordained.  The 
general  condition  of  things,  as  found  in  Louisi- 
ana and  in  Florida  and  Texas,  was  inviting  and 
tempting  in  those  two  Mexican  States,  California 
and  New  Mexico.  They  were  rich  in  natural 
resources,  sparsely  peopled,  low  in  civilization, 
poorly  developed,  and  under  the  changing  shadows 
of  a  distant  and  mostly  nominal  government. 

In  the  acquisition  there  was  thrown  on  the 
American  people  and  Government  this  expanse 
of  wild  border  land,  whose  scattered  inhabitants 
knew  civil  law  mostly  as  a  law  of  force,  which 
each  man  carried  with  him  somewhat  as  in  the 
stirrup.  The  blood  was  three  fourths  native  and 
prehistoric  Mexican  or  Aztec,  tinged  with  In- 
dian, and  with  European,  direct  by  immigration 
or  through  the  border  American.  Much  of  this 
blood,  and  the  more  energetic  portion  of  it,  was 
half-breed,  coming  indifferently  from  somewhere. 

The  addition  to  the  Union  of  such  an  expanse 
of  territory,  and  so  rich  naturally,  with  the  Spanish 
civilization  of  the  seventeenth  century  creeping 


THE   SIX   GUOWTHS    OF   THE   UNITED    STATES.      37 

over  it,  presented  a  new  and  very  serious  problem 
to  the  old  United  States.  How  much  of  tlie 
seventeenth  century,  as  Old  Spain  exported  it  to 
New  Spain,  could  we  cany  on  one  fourth  of  the 
entire  country  ?  How  could  we  digest  and  assimi- 
late so  much  crude  material  in  wealtli  and  mixed 
population  and  medieeval  society  ?  Possessing  only 
vaguely  the  rudiments  of  law,  social  life,  Chris- 
tianity, and  education,  how  long  a  time  would  be 
needed  for  the  spelling-book  and  New  Testament 
and  marriage  ceremony  to  prepare  this  new  land 
for  the  ballot  and  jury  box  of  our  popular  govern- 
ment ?  It  might  be  worthy  of  an  investigation  by 
our  benevolent  societies  to  ascertain  which  process 
has  been  the  more  successful  for  the  first  twenty- 
five  years  within  our  new  border,  —  the  American- 
izing or  the  Mexicanizing.  In  such  an  investi- 
gation persons  and  papers  could  not  be  used  to 
any  great  extent,  since  our  benevolent  energies 
have  worked  in  other  directions  and  filed  reports 
on  other  fields.  Business  could  report,  if  benevo- 
lent education  cannot;  and  the  Government  can 
tell  how  many  more  Indians  it  lias  shot  than  the 
Church  has  converted.  The  American  adminis- 
tration of  Christianity  for  the  world  is  preparing 
material  for  some  amazing  and  humiliating  chap- 
ters of  history  on  the  home  field,  under  the  sub- 
heads of  Indian,  African,  and  Mexican. 

Following  the  acquisition  of  California  and  New 
Mexico  in  the  treaty  of  1848,  there  came  into  the 


38      TilK   SIX   GUOWTIIS    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

national  aiul  public  domain  additional  territory 
from  Mexico  by  what  is  called  the  Gadsden  Pur- 
chase. This  consisted  of  45,535  square  miles, — 
equal  to  five  States  like  Massachusetts,  —  now 
constituting  the  southern  portions  of  New  Mexico 
and  Arizona.  The  treaty  was  made  in  1853.  The 
reasons  for  the  purchase  are  not  made  perfectly 
obvious  by  the  official  papers.  In  "  The  Public 
Domain  "  Donaldson  says  :  "  This  purchase  was 
for  the  purpose  of  more  correctly  defining  and 
making  a  more  regular  line  and  certain  boundary 
between  the  United  States  and  Mexico."  Forty- 
five  thousand  square  miles  would  seem  to  be  more 
than  ample  for  correcting,  straightening,  and  de- 
fining a  boundary  of  five  hundred  miles,  more  or 
less.  However,  after  this  was  all  done  by  ten 
millions  of  purchase-money,  —  "  to  strengthen  and 
more  firmly  maintain  the  peace  which  happily 
prevails  between  the  two  Eepublics,"  —  exception- 
ally rich  mines,  even  for  Mexico,  were  said  to  be 
found  in  ample  measure  on  the  United  States  side 
of  the  corrected  and  peaceful  line. 

"  0  si  angxilus  ille 
Proxiinus  accedat  qui  nunc  deformat  agelluui." 

The  last  addition,  and  the  sixth,  that  has  been 
made  to  the  territory  of  the  United  States  was 
Alaska.  The  treaty  of  purchase  was  concluded 
March  30,  1867,  ratified  May  28,  and  the  terri- 
tory was  formally  conveyed  to  the  United  States 


THE   SIX   GROWTHS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      39 

October  18  of  the  same  year.  The  price  paid  was 
$7,200,000,  and  the  area  bought  was  577,390 
square  miles,  being  a  little  less  than  two  cents  for 
an  acre.  In  the  Louisiana  Purchase  the  cost  was 
a  little  less  than  three  cents  for  an  acre.  The 
area  equals  seventy-one  States  like  Massachusetts. 
Mr.  Secretary  Seward  negotiated  the  purchase, 
and  at  a  public  dinner  given  when  he  retired  to 
private  life  he  remarked  that  he  regarded  the  act 
as  the  most  important  in  his  official  life,  and  he 
added,  "  But  it  may  take  two  generations  before 
the  purchase  is  appreciated." 

Of  its  entire  area  the  islands  are  estimated  to 
make  about  thirty-one  thousand  square  miles,  and 
their  water  edge,  with  the  shores  of  the  mainland 
and  bays,  aggregates  a  coast  line  of  about  twenty- 
five  thousand  miles,  —  the  circumference  of  the 
earth.  This  is  by  estimation  and  not  measure- 
ment, as  the  Coast  Survey  of  the  Government  has 
not  yet  run  out  and  reported  the  shore  indentations 
of  the  Alaskan  purchase. 

As  to  the  natural  and  staple  products  of  Alaska, 
it  can  supply  ice  for  the  universal  Pacific  trade. 
It  may,  however,  sound  strange  to  say  that  it 
must  be  harvested  inland  mainly,  since  the  aver- 
age cold  of  the  shore  will  not  uniformly  insure  a 
crop.  For  the  last  forty-five  years  the  mercury 
has  been  below  zero  only  four  times  at  Sitka,  and 
not  once  under  four  below.  Immense  rains  mark 
the  winter,  sometimes  to  the  amount  of  eighty-one 


40      THE   SIX   GlIOWTIIS    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

inches  a  year,  and  tlie  spring  opens  so  early  that  at 
Sitka  the  wikl  gooseberry  has  been  found  in  blos- 
som on  the  17th  of  March.  The  winter  average 
zero  line  leaves  the  continent  at  Behring's  Strait, 
and  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Aleutian  Mountains 
and  on  the  southwest  coast  the  mercury  rarely 
goes  down  to  zero.  The  country  is  ample  in  good 
timber  for  the  navies  of  the  world,  and  hemlock, 
cedar,  and  the  yellow  pine  extend  over  thousands 
of  miles.  Coal,  iron,  and  copper  are  found  in  rich 
deposits,  and  on  the  Columbian  edge  of  the  ter- 
ritory the  English  are  reported  as  taking  out  a 
million  of  gold  annually.  And  what  will  be  more, 
by  and  by,  for  the  tourists  from  the  hot  zone, 
Alaska  has  three  hundred  moving  glaciers  and 
ice-fields.  But  it  is  too  early  to  speak  confidently 
on  the  products  of  the  interior.  When  the  Yu- 
kon Valley,  navigable  fifteen  hundred  miles  by 
steam,  has  been  as  w^ell  examined  as  the  Colorado, 
and  when  the  whole  territory  is  as  well  described 
as  Colorado  is  by  Hayden's  splendid  Geological 
and  Geographical  Atlas  of  it  in  twenty  maps, 
Seward's  two  generations  will  probably  have  gone 
by  in  one,  and  then  the  wisdom  of  his  purchase 
will  be  verified  and  confirmed. 

At  present  we  can  content  ourselves  with  the 
fact  that  for  international  commerce  its  fishing- 
grounds  are  not  surpassed  for  area,  variety,  and 
quality  in  the  world ;  while  its  seal-fisheries,  con- 
fined to  two  or  three  of  its  fifty-five  islands  over 


THE   SIX    GKOWTIIS    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES.       41 

tlireu  miles  long,  are  paying  four  per  cent  on  the 
cost,  and  have  already  paid  off  three  million  dol- 
lars of  the  principal. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  have  not  kept  up 
the  civilizing  institutions  that  the  Kussiau  Gov- 
ernment had  established  among  the  sixty  thousand 
natives,  but  iiave  allowed  them  to  fail.  Should 
it  not  niodify  our  Protestant  criticism  of  the  Greek 
Church,  that  they  carry  their  form  of  Christianity 
and  the  school  with  their  national  flag  ?  I  have 
referred  to  the  humiliating  chapters  that  must  by 
and  by  go  into  the  history  of  our  popular  admin- 
istration of  Christianity  under  the  subheads  of 
Indian,  African,  and  Mexican.  It  is  not  too  late 
to  prevent  the  addition  of  an  Alaskan.  Of  the 
quality  of  the  Alaskans  —  including  under  that 
term  the  natives  of  both  the  mainland  and  the 
islands  —  Hon.  A'incent  Colyer,  special  Indian 
commissioner  to  that  Territory,  says:  "I  do  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  if  three  fourths  of  them  were 
landed  in  New  York  as  coming  from  Europe,  they 
would  be  selected  as  among  the  most  intelligent 
of  the  many  worthy  immigrants  who  daily  arrive 
at  that  port." 


42  GROWTH    IN    SETTLEMENTS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

GROWTH    IN   SETTLEMENTS. 

WHEN  the  Revolution  was  accomplished,  the 
occupied  territory  of  the  thirteen  Colonies 
constituted  an  Atlantic  belt  about  nine  hundred 
miles  long,  and  of  an  average  breadth  of  one  hun- 
dred miles.  Tliey  were,  in  proportion  to  the  magni- 
tude of  the  whole  continent,  but  a  small  area,  only 
as  a  civil  fringe  on  its  eastern  shore,  and  some 
thought  they  hung  quite  as  loosely  as  the  sea-weed. 
The  nations  of  Europe  were  looking  to  see  them 
tossed  asunder  by  some  of  those  great  tidal  waves 
of  society  which  had  torn  adrift  and  swamped  all 
preceding  republics.  Daring  men,  true  to  the  Re- 
public, had  passed  the  watershed  and  built  tlieir 
rough  cabins  on  the  Ohio  and  its  head-streams, 
and  on  some  of  the  rivers  of  Kentucky.  Here  and 
there  in  the  Great  Valley  the  French  trapper  and 
trader  and  emissary,  without  a  country  or  a  home, 
lingered  and  wandered  between  the  lost  Canadas 
and  the  sold  Louisiana.  The  Spanish  hunters  and 
explorers  and  cavaliers,  who  a  half-century  before 
had  penetrated  from  Santa  Fe  to  tlie  Arkansas  and 
Missouri   and   Mississippi,  were   looking   with  a 


GROWTH    IN    SF.TTLE.MEXTS.  43 

jealous  eye  on  these  intrusions  of  the  English 
colonists.  As  they  had  come  up  into  New  INIexico 
ninety  years  before  Jamestown  was  settled,  and 
had  their  five  hundred  academies  and  training 
schools  in  New  Spain  when  the  Pilgrims  landed, 
and  owned  both  banks  of  the  Mississippi  as  far  up 
as  the  present  northern  boundary  of  Louisiana, — 
on  the  east  near  the  mouth  of  Ked  Eiver,  —  they 
were  a  willing  and  formidable  obstacle  to  the 
westward  growth  of  the  young  and  seaboard  Ee- 
public.  Moreover,  Spain  occupied  and  defended 
both  banks  of  the  Mississippi  below  the  Ohio, 
though  much  in  violation  of  treaty,  and  with  well- 
arranged  annoyances  exacted  duties  on  all  goods 
passing  down  the  river.  This  was  felt  the  more 
severely  since  settlements  were  advancing  in  a 
remarkable  manner ;  and  indeed,  as  Monette  says, 
"  The  whole  country  appeared  in  motion  for  the 
Mississippi." 

In  a  preceding  chapter  the  growth  of  the  United 
States  in  territory  has  been  outlined  under  its  six 
additions,  by  which  the  original  area  has  been 
increased  about  five-fold.  In  this  chapter  it  is 
proposed  to  illustrate  by  specific  local  growths 
how  the  population  during  the  same  time  has 
been  increased  fully  twelve-fold,  and  the  area  of 
settlement  in  vastly  greater  proportions. 

The  increase  of  settlements  in  the  wilds  of 
America  had  been  stimulated  by  the  Crown,  and 
was  well  under  way  when  the  era  of  independence 


44  GROWTH   IN   SETTLEMENTS. 

opened.  In  1749  there  was  a  royal  grant  to  the 
fust  Ohio  company  of  five  hiuuh'ecl  thousand  acres, 
which  afterward  came  mostly  into  the  Dinwiddie 
and  Washington  families,  and  finally  into  the 
latter.  This  tract  lay  between  the  Monongahela 
and  the  Kenawha,  and  the  company  became  obli- 
gated to  locate  on  it  one  hundred  immigrant 
families  within  seven  years.  Five  years  later, 
and  after  Braddock's  defeat,  the  Crown  ordered  a 
grant  of  lands  about  the  Ohio  to  those  wishing  to 
settle  there,  and  in  quantities  of  not  more  than 
one  thousand  acres  to  a  person,  in  order  to  re- 
possess the  country  and  expel  the  French.  Grants 
were  made  on  the  head-waters  of  the  Kentucky, 
the  Cumberland,  Clinch,  Ilolston,  and  elsewhere  in 
eastern  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  Thus  under 
the  royal  regime  the  passion  for  wild  laud  and  a 
farther  frontier  and  daring  exposure  in  the  wilder- 
ness and  among  Indians  was  cultivated  and  grati- 
fied, and  the  young  Eepublic  inherited  it. 

As  independence  became  more  certain  wdiile  the 
painful  years  of  the  Eevolution  wore  away,  Vir- 
ginia, Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  New  York 
began  to  think  more  definitely  of  their  charter 
claims  to  the  wild  country  lying  between  the  Ohio, 
Mississii^pi,  and  the  Lakes.  In  mature  judgment 
and  with  much  patriotism  the  State  rights  were 
finally  yielded,  and  these  land  claims,  with  certain 
reservations,  were  made  over  to  the  United  States 
for  the  conmion  good.     But  the  reservations  were 


GROWTH    I\    SETTLEMENTS.  45 

])ut  on  the  market  by  the  individual  States  and 
by  the  United.  States.  Here,  tlierefore,  were  five 
parties  in  the  American  land  market  offering  bor- 
der hemes  to  all  and  any  daring  adventurers. 

Virginia,  with  much  foresight,  moved  off  in 
schemes  of  emigration.  One  of  her  laws  "  allowed 
to  each  emigrant  as  a  settlement  right  four  hun- 
dred acres  of  land,  besides  a  preference  right  to  one 
thousand  more  acres  contiguous.  The  boundary 
lines  between  any  contiguous  settlement  rights 
were  generally  adjusted  amicably  by  the  parties  in- 
erested,  before  actual  survey  was  made.  In  these 
adjustments  they  were  guided  chiefly  by  the  ridges 
or  watercourses,  or  some  other  natural  boundary. 
In  this  manner  much  of  the  country  of  western 
Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  was  parcelled  out 
among  settlers,  and  subsequently  nearly  all  the 
country  between  the  Muskingum  and  tlie  Ohio 
on  the  east."^  Wliat  Virginia  retained  lay  between 
the  Scioto  and  the  Little  Miami,  and  was  called 
the  Virginia  Military  District.  The  Connecticut 
Reserve  was  bounded  on  the  north  by  Lake  Erie, 
and  was  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  by  sixty- 
eight  miles  in  extent.  The  Government  also  set 
apart  a  large  tract  on  the  east  side  of  the  Scioto 
to  liquidate  the  claims  of  Eevolutionary  soldiers, 
which  was  called  the  United  States  Military  Dis- 
trict. These  lands  were  offered  in  large  quantities 
for   fifty  cents  an  acre,  more  or  less,  payable  in 

1  Monette's  History  of  the  Mississippi  Valle)-,  vol.  ii.  p.  9. 


4G  GROWTH    IN    SETTLEMENTS. 

Government  certificates  if  tlie  lands  were  purchased 
of  the  United  States.  The  Western-land  fever  ran 
high  in  those  days,  —  perhaps  as  high  as  it  ever  has 
in  later  and  speculative  days.  "  Public  attention 
in  the  interior,"  says  Monette,  "  notwithstanding 
occasional  instances  of  Indian  hostilities,  seemed 
wholly  engrossed  in  the  acquisition  of  land,  as 
if  it  were  the  only  subject  of  interest,  the  only 
great  business  of  life." 

Of  course  the  large  grants  obtained  were  de- 
signed for  speculative  purposes,  and  various  ex- 
pedients were  used  to  effect  sales  and  induce 
immigration ;  and  thus  the  border  settlements 
were  carried  farther  and  farther  west. 

Judge  John  Cleaves  Symmes,  of  New  Jersey, 
bought  of  the  United  States  six  hundred  thousand 
acres  between  the  Great  and  Little  Miami,  at  sixty 
cents  an  acre,  payable  in  the  military  warrants 
and  other  paper  of  the  Government.  This  tract 
was  sold  in  divisions,  and  again  resold  in  small 
parcels,  and  so  came  into  the  possession  of  actual 
settlers.  Major  Benjamin  Stiles  purchased  ten 
thousand  acres  of  this  Symmes  tract,  and  so 
tempted  immigration  and  extended  the  settled 
frontier.  The  cases  cited  are  sufficient  to  illus- 
trate the  passion  and  practice  of  those  earlier  days 
in  regard  to  emigration. 

This  fever  for  wild  land,  now  so  prevalent  and 
especially  so  contagious  along  all  the  new  railroads 
into    wild    country,  is   sometimes   regarded   as  a 


GIIOWTH    IX    SETTLEMENTS.  47 

modern  epidemic;  wliile  it  is  really  as  old  as  the 
Government,  and  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago 
was  carrying  off  as  many,  in  proportion  to  tlie 
entire  population,  as  are  carried  off  to-day.  More- 
over, the  front  of  this  crude  civilization  then  pressed 
westward  against  most  adverse  circumstances.  It 
was  not  nntil  1784  that  a  regular  stage  was  run 
between  Boston  and  Hartford.  Mail  service  be- 
tween the  leading  cities  was  rare,  irregular,  and  ex- 
pensive, and  of  the  nature  of  an  express.  Charges 
for  single  letters  from  Boston  to  New  York  were 
sometimes  very  high ;  the  first  mail  line  from 
Portsmouth  to  Savannah  was  opened  in  1786, 
and  in  1790  there  were  only  seventy-four  post- 
offices  in  the  entire  United  States. 

The  original  expresses  in  America,  —  for  per- 
sons, not  packages,  —  the  public  stages,  were  slow 
in  opening  their  lines,  and  so  kept  emigration  in 
waiting.  At  the  same  time  the  question  of  mili- 
tary roads  and  national  highways  was  engaging  the 
attention  of  the  General  Government;  and  as  time 
and  enterprise  glided  along  into  the  first  quarter  of 
the  present  century,  this  became  a  warm  question. 
In  its  discussion  the  conservative  East  and  the  pro- 
gressive West  began  to  show  the  pleasant  rivalry 
that  has  since  become  a  constant  element  in  na- 
tional politics.  Especially  were  real  estate  and  tide- 
water interests  in  tlie  old  thirteen  States  fearful 
lest  a  broad  and  wild  frontier,  and  at  low  rates, 
should  depress   the  land  market,  and  an   interior 


48  GKOWTll    IN    SETTLEMENTS. 

river  commerce  lesson  the  foreign  trade.  Ocean 
trade  and  travel  and  benevolence  were  inclined  to 
go  together  into  foreign  lands ;  while  the  nation 
was  led  by  a  popular  impulse  to  a  westward  move- 
ment, and  an  interior  growth,  and  an  emigrating 
centre  that  would  not  wait  for  auxiliary  legislation 
or  be  obedient  to  what  was  thwarting.  The  East 
was  slow  in  learning  what  Washington  said  as 
early  as  1784,  after  returning  from  the  country 
beyond  the  Alleghanies  :  "  Smooth  the  road  and 
make  easy  the  way  for  them,  and  tlieu  see  what 
an  influx  of  articles  will  be  poured  upon  us,  how 
amazingly  our  exports  will  be  increased,  and  how 
amply  we  shall  be  compensated  for  any  trouble  and 
expense  we  may  encounter  to  effect  it."^  Like 
other  Western  pioneers,  Washington  had  little  in 
response  but  rebuff,  and  men  continued  to  emi- 
grate much  after  the  manner  of  Al^raham  and  Ja- 
cob, until  Oct.  26,  1825,  when  "  Clinton's  Ditch  " 
was  formally  opened,  and  the  first  boat  went 
through  from  Albany  to  Lake  Erie,  —  ninety- 
nine  years  after  its  general  route  had  been  re- 
commended by  Cadwallader  Golden,  surveyor 
general  for  the  Colony. 

New  England  had  too  much  land  of  its  own  on 
the  market  to  favor  actively  tliis  westward  move- 
ment. The  Bay  State  was  holding  much  of  tlie 
wild  land  in  the  Province  of  Maine,  and  was 
anxious  to  sell  and  settle  it.     By  a  lottery  scheme 

^  Letter  to  Govei'iior  H.iri'ison,  1784. 


GROWTH   IN   SETTLEMENTS.  49 

it  put  a  large  number  of  townships  on  the  public, 
hoping  that  those  who  drew  a  prize  would  immi- 
grate to  it,  and  so  colonies  be  founded.  The  plan 
failed  to  a  large  extent.  Those  who  obtained  land 
declined  to  take  titles,  or  were  unwilling  to  occupy, 
and  lottery  land  gorged  the  market. 

When,  therefore,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Cutler  was  nego- 
tiating with  Congress  on  tlie  purchase  for  the 
second  Ohio  company,  he  met  with  much  oppo- 
sition, and  says  of  the  delegates  from  Massachu- 
setts :  "  I  thought  they  would  not  be  very  warm 
advocates  in  my  favor  .  .  .  when  she  is  forming 
the  plan  of  settling  the  Eastern  country  ;  .  .  .  and 
I  dare  not  trust  myself  with  any  of  tlie  New  York 
delegates  with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  because  that 
Government  is  wisely  inviting  the  Eastern  people 
to  settle  in  that  State."  ^ 

With  such  home  interests  in  the  old  States, 
Western  enterprise  gained  but  little  Government 
patronage  either  from  Congress  or  the  State  legis- 
latures, and  it  was  left  to  more  private  and  indi- 
vidual hands.  This  was  well  in  the  end,  for  it 
left  these  Western  trails  to  be  opened  by  men 
of  will  and  force  and  energy  who  did  not  need 
State  aid,  and  could  safely  fall  back  on  themselves 
to  see  their  purposes  carried  out.  The  men  who 
blazed  the  forest  trees  for  the  bridle  path  and 
found  the  best  ford  with  their  own  feet  were  men 
of  sterling  worth,  and  elect  of  tlie  times,  and  did 

1  Walker's  History  of  Athens  County,  OMo,  pp.  38,  39. 
4 


50  GROWTH    IN    SETTLEMENTS. 

not  leave  their  superiors  behind  them.  Sacrifice 
of  old  homes,  opposition,  and  hardships  secured 
their  numbers  of  first  quality.  He  who  has  not 
energy  and  enterprise  enough  to  be  an  emigrant 
M'ould  make  but  an  indifferent  colonist ;  and  it  is 
well  for  the  country  that  such  continue  now  in 
the  comforts  and  luxuries  of  the  old  East,  and 
enjoy  being  nursed  by  institutions  that  their 
pioneer  fathers  planted.  Much  of  the  marvel 
of  frontier  growth  disappears  when  the  superior 
character  of  the  persons  who  immigrated  to  those 
new  centres  comes  to  be  understood. 

Conservative  Eastern  men  in  comfortable  home- 
steads among  ancestral  elms,  with  little  thought 
of  planting  trees  and  opening  fountains  for  the 
coming  generations,  as  their  ancestors  did  for 
them,  call  these  pioneers  visionary  men.  Better 
call  them  men  of  vision.  They  saw  farther,  as 
they  saw  more,  tlian  those  who  preferred  old  trees 
and  wells  and  acres.  Another  eleventh  chapter 
of  Hebrews  on  the  secular  side  might  be  written, 
headed  by  such  names  as  Boone,  Kenton,  Harrod, 
Putnam,  and  George  Rogers  Clarke.  Those  and 
their  kind  made  bridle  paths  into  the  West,  and 
planted  block-houses  and  fenced  towns  and  cities 
and  States,  while  their  brethren  tarried  to  plant 
corn  in  the  pilgrim  fields  of  Virginia  and  New 
England.  Those  pioneers  "all  died  in  faith,  not 
having  received  the  promises,  but  having  seen 
them  afar  off,  and  were  persuaded  of  them,  and 


GKOWTII    IN    SETTLEMENTS.  ol 

embraced  them."  And  they  also  had  cruel  iiiock- 
ings  and  scourgings  and  bonds  and  imprisonments; 
and  were  stoned  and  sawn  asunder  and  slain  with 
the  tomahawk ;  and  wandered  about  destitute,  al- 
fiicted,  and  tormented.  They  were  men  of  great 
foreknowledge  in  their  dim  border-land,  because 
they  were  men  of  immense  foreordination.  An  in- 
cident here,  with  its  many  features,  will  be  as  good 
as  a  chapter  to  illustrate  the  points  now  asserted. 

In  1782,  while  the  struggle  on  the  east  of  the 
Alleghanies  between  the  Colonies  and  the  Crown 
weakened  toward  the  treaty  of  peace  in  the  year 
following,  the  English  with  their  Indian  allies 
made  it  more  desperate  and  bloody  west  of  the 
mountains.  The  sorrowful  disaster  at  Blue  Licks 
had  moved  General  Clarke  to  a  campaign  for  the 
relief  of  the  border  settlers  in  the  region  of  the 
coming  Cincinnati.  His  work  was  well  done,  as  al- 
ways with  him,  from  whom  a  word  was  enough  for 
his  splendid  volunteers  from  frontier  cabins.  On 
their  triumphant  return,  the  dying  McCracken,  a 
gallant  captain,  was  borne  along  on  his  litter  toward 
his  rude  home.  Wlieu  they  ascended  the  crest  of 
hills  which  now  overlooks  Cincinnati,  his  eyes, 
growing  dim,  took  in  a  grand  panorama.  The  Lick- 
ing Valley  opened  up  toward  Cumberland  Gap, 
the  Kentucky  hills  showed  a  magnificent  amphi- 
theatre, and  the  beautiful  Ohio  moved  majestically 
across  the  enchanting  landscape.  The  view  to  the 
dying  man  became  as  an  inspired  vision  and  ran 


52  GROWTH    IN    SETTLEMENTS. 

into  prophecy;  and  lie  asked  his  comrades  to  make 
a  halt  and  gather  about  him.  When  the  glitter- 
ing bayonets  were  quieted,  and  the  borderers  had 
patted  their  horses  into  restfulness,  he  took  solemn 
promise  of  his  companions  in  arms  that  fifty  years 
from  that  day  so  many  of  them  as  survived  and 
could  do  it  should  re-gather  on  that  spot  and  make 
a  second  view  of  the  landscape.  The  first  dwell- 
ing-house of  Cincinnati,  the  log-cabin  of  General 
Clark,  was  then  two  years  old.  When  the  4th  of 
November,  1832,  arrived,  the  survivors  of  fifty 
years  and  of  so  many  Indian  skirmishes  kept  their 
promise  to  their  dying  captain.  What  a  reality 
in  the  place  of  his  vision  !  The  half-century  had 
caught  up  with  what  he  saw.  If  now  we  make 
the  time  a  round  century,  and  stand  in  1882  where 
that  border  soldiery  gathered  sadly  around  the  litter 
and  its  dying  man,  we  shall  be  better  prepared  to 
pay  a  just  tribute  to  the  men  who  have  gone  West 
and  have  made  the  United  States  out  of  the  thir- 
teen Colonies. 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ANCIENT   CHICAGO.^ 

AND  not  yet  fifty  years  old  !  The  title  of  tliis 
chapter  must  seem  jocose  to  a  foreigner. 
It  is  very  well  for  Layard  or  Eawlinson  to  write 
of  ancient  Nineveh,  or  for  some  Old  Mortality  to 
work  up  the  Roman  Chester  of  England  or  London 
Town  or  Santa  Fe  or  Boston  Town.  The  relics 
and  skeletons,  dust,  cobwebs,  and  broken  slumbers 
make  very  entertaining  reading,  with  no  violence 
to  our  respect  for  chronology  or  denial  of  our 
notions  about  antiquity.  We  rise  up  before  the 
hoary  head  of  those  old  human  centres.  But  this 
Chicago  is  an  affair  of  last  week  with  an  anti- 
quary,—  the  growth  of  some  stray  seed  from  Jo- 
nah's gourd.  The  persons  are  alive,  and  yet  have 
business  in  them,  who  attended  the  meeting  in 
1833  for  incorporating  this  town,  and  saw  the  city 
charter  for  Chicago  granted  in  1837  by  the  Illinois 
legislature.  They  can  stand  yet  in  the  doorways 
of  their  memories,  if  not  of  their  original  log- 
cabins,  and  correct  the  proof-sheets  of  this  chapter 
on  Ancient  Chicago. 

1  Magazine  of  American  History,  Ajiril,  1885. 


54  ANCIENT    CHICAGO. 

With  a  little  free  play  backward  and  forward 
we  propose  to  keep  beyond  those  two  dates  of 
incorporation  in  this  historical  study.^ 

This  volume  is  in  no  sense  offered  as  a  history, 
but  only  a  carefully  selected  collection  of  illustra- 
tions of  a  marvellous  national  growth.  For  this 
purpose  thirteen  topics  are  taken  to  sample  the 
general  and  magnificent  movement.  To  set  forth 
the  rise  and  growth  of  cities,  Chicago  is  selected. 
It  is  beyond  all  parallel  in  the  founding  and 
developing  of  the  cities  of  the  world.  Inferior 
ones  have  been  established  —  as  Alexandria,  Con- 
stantinople, and  St.  Petersburg  —  by  the  will  of 
sovereigns ;  but  Chicago  is  due  to  the  personal  will 
of  a  sovereign  people  combining  voluntarily  their 
individual  interests.  The  surprise  over  its  growth 
would  be  much  enhanced  if  we  could  set  it  forth 
solitary  for  exhibition ;  but  in  the  same  historical 
picture  a  score  of  others  take  their  place  of  a  hun- 
dred thousand  population  and  more  each,  whicli 
have  sprung  up  in  a  similar  way.  Nor  has  this 
city  ever  made  such  great  increase  in  brief  periods 
as  some  later  and  eminent  cities.  In  the  first  five 
years  after  the  census  of  1880  Minneapolis  and 

1  Since  this  article  appeared  in  the  "  Magazine  of  American 
History,"  in  April,  18S5,  the  first  volume  of  a  valuable  History 
of  Chicago,  to  be  published  in  three  volumes,  has  come  to  hand. 
With  its  aid  this  article  has  been  revised,  and  credit  has  been 
given  in  the  cases  of  new  information.  The  work  of  Mr. 
Andreas  is  eminently  elaborate,  and  must  have  cost  much 
patient,  painful,  and  expensive  research. 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  55 

St.  Paul  almost  trebled  their  population,  going  to 
about  125,000  and  112,000  each. 

Moreover,  we  are  still  building  Chicagoes  in  tlie 
West.  The  United  States  is  not  driven  to  the 
defence  of  the  lioness,  —  Unum,  sed  leoneni;  she  is 
muciparous  in  her  progeny  of  cities.  Their  number 
and  growth  can  be  appreciated  only  by  frequent 
tours  to  the  borders.  Chicago  is  selected  and  set 
forth  in  commonplace  details  to  illustrate  the 
every-day  work  which  is  now  going  on  in  our  new 
country.  So  broad  has  been  the  ground-plan  of 
our  structure,  and  necessarily  so  far  apart  the  work- 
men, and  each  so  intent  on  his  own,  that  we  hear 
and  know  but  little  of  all  this  national  upbuilding. 
No  doubt  some  force  must  be  recognized  in  what 
is  said  of  the  demonstrative  quality  of  the  Ameri- 
cans as  they  have  been  coming  up  to  the  front  in 
i\\Q  procession  of  the  nations.  Considering,  how- 
ever, the  work  accomplished  in  these  one  hundred 
years  the  silence  has  been  almost  sublime.  A 
decennial  census,  with  its  unrhetorical,  cold  col- 
umns of  figures,  has  been  the  jDrincipal  speaker  for 
America. 

"Like  some  tall  palm  the  mystic  fabric  sprung  : 
Majestic  silence  ! " 

When  Marquette,  in  his  Christian  mission,  lay 
ill  in  his  cabin,  at  the  Portage  de  Chicagau  and 
mouth  of  the  Calumet,  in  the  winter  of  1674-75, 
the   fur  traders  came   to  his  relief.     They  were 


56  ANCIENT    CHICAGO. 

usually  in  advance  of  the  explorer  and  the  priest, 
and  they  early  opened  what  in  railroad  parlance  is 
now  called  the  " Chicagou  route"  between  Canada 
and  Louisiana.  It  was  in  1718  when  Governor 
Keith  of  Pennsylvania  sent  out  James  Logan  to 
explore  for  routes  westward  to  the  Mississippi ; 
and  of  one  line  he  reports  thus:  "From  Lake 
Huron  they  pass  by  the  Strait  of  Michilimakina 
four  leagues,  being  two  in  breadth,  and  of  a  great 
depth,  to  the  Lake  Illinoise ;  thence  one  hundred 
and  fifty  leagues  to  Fort  Miamis,  situated  at  the 
mouth  of  the  River  Chicagou.  This  port  is  not 
regularly  garrisoned." 

Of  the  history  of  this  fort  there  are  no  extant 
records  yet  found,  and  at  the  council  for  the  treaty 
of  Greenville,  1795,  no  Indian  could  give  informa- 
tion concerning  its  origin.^ 

In  1773  one  William  Murray,  an  Englishman, 
residing  at  Kaskaskia,  then  so  eminent,  held  a 
council  there  with  the  chiefs  of  the  Illinois  tribe, 
and  purchased  of  them  two  immense  tracts  of  land. 
One  of  these  tracts  embraced  the  most  of  the  grand 
delta  between  the  Illinois  and  the  Mississippi,  with 
a  very  Lirge  area  farther  north,  and  had  substan- 
tially these  boundaries  —  quite  generous,  consid- 
ering the  price :  from  the  mouth  of  the  Illinois 
and  up  it  "  to  Chicagou  or  Garlick  Creek,"  about 
two  hundred  and  seventy-five  miles  ;  thence  north- 
erly "to  a  great  mountain  to  the  northward  of  the 

1  Andreas,  vol.  i.  p.  79. 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  57 

White  Buffalo  plain,"  about  two  hundred  and 
eighty  miles  ;  and  thence  direct  to  the  place  of  be- 
ginning, about  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  The 
outline  of  the  other  tract  is  not  at  hand.  For  the 
two  tracts  INIurray  says  that  the  purchase  was 
made  "to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  the  Indians,  in 
consideration  of  the  sum  of  five  shillings  to  them 
in  hand  paid,"  together  with  some  goods  and  mer- 
chandise. Before  the  contract  was  consummated 
other  Englishmen  united  with  him  under  the  title 
of  "  the  Illinois  Land  Company."  The  whole  affair 
carries  a  very  modern  air,  especially  with  that  addi- 
tion of  "  other  Englishmen,"  and  illustrates  some 
of  the  broader  processes  of  to-day  in  civilizing  and 
Americanizing  the  Indians.  But  five  years  later 
Gen.  George  Rogers  Clark  put  that  magnificent 
quadrant  between  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi 
under  the  American  flag,  and  so  swept  the  acres 
and  Indians  of  IMurray,  with  his  English  associates, 
into  the  young  Union.  In  1781  the  Company 
pressed  their  claims  for  ratification  by  Congress, 
and  the  Senate  entered  this  opinion  in  the  words 
of  the  committee,  which  became  a  precedent :  "  In 
the  opinion  of  the  conmiittee  deeds  obtained  by 
private  persons  from  the  Indians,  without  any 
antecedent  authority  or  subsequent  information 
from  the  Government,  could  not  vest  in  the  gran- 
tees mentioned  in  such  deed  a  title  to  the  lands 
therein  described."  These  primitive  "  Indian  Con- 
tractors "  worked    their  "  ring "  around  Congress 


58  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

until  1707,  and  then  abandoned  their  project  for 
civilizing  the  North  i^merican  Indian.  But 
they  made  another  point  in  history  for  Ancient 
Cbicago.i 

The  earliest  trace  of  any  occupant  at  Chicago 
i.s  that  of  Guarie,  a  Frenchman,  tlie  corn-hills  of 
whose  cabin  patch  were  traceable  in  1818,  though 
overgrown  with  grass.  He  located  there  prior  to 
1778,  and  had  his  hut  on  the  river-bank,  near 
where  Fulton  Street  now  meets  it.^ 

This  was  the  year  in  which  General  Clark,  under 
the  sovereign  instruction  of  Virginia,  and  with  a 
commission  signed  by  Patrick  Henry,  Governor, 
conquered  from  the  English  the  region  between 
the  Ohio,  the  Great  Lakes,  and  the  Mississippi. 
In  October  of  that  year  Virginia  erected  the  same 
into  the  "County  of  Illinois  in  the  State  of  Vir- 
ginia." Then  tlie  laws  of  the  Old  Dominion  were 
as  sacred  at  the  mouth  of  the  Chicago  as  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Potomac,  and  Chicago,  equally  with 
Eichmond,  was  in  Virginia. 

But  we  have  yet  to  find  the  first  settler  in 
Chicago,  though  the  whole  region  is  occupied  by 
the  Pottawatomies.  After  the  treaty  of  Eyswick, 
1697,  which  divided  Hayti  and  gave  the  eastern 
shore  to  Spain,  the  colony  there  languished.  The 
French  negroes  in  it,  many  of  whom  were  free, 

^  Andreas,  vol.  i.  pp.  69,  70. 

^  The  Discovery  and  Conquest  of  the  Northwest.  By  Paifus 
Blauchard. 


ANCIKNT   CHICAGO.  5.9 

educated  in  France,  wealthy,  but  denied  political 
privileges,  grew  uneasy,  and  crossed  over  to  the 
Louisiana,  where  they  were  welcomed  by  the  French 
and  became  readily  assimilated  to  the  Indians. 
One  of  these  made  his  home  at  Chicafjo,  amono- 
the  Pottawatomies,  in  1779,  and  remained  there 
till  1796.  His  name  was  Baptiste  Point  de  Saible. 
He  was  "  a  handsome  negro,  well  educated,  and 
settled  at  Eschikagou,  but  much  in  the  French 
interest."  So  runs  the  old  record  of  Colonel  De 
Peyster,  then  (1779)  British  commander  at  Macki- 
naw. Another  record  says  :  "  At  a  very  early  pe- 
riod there  was  a  negro  lived  there,  named  Baptiste 
Point  de  Saible.  My  brother,  Perrish  Grignon, 
visited  Chicago  about  1794,  and  told  me  that 
Point  de  Saible  was  a  large  man ;  that  he  had  a 
commission  for  some  office,  but  for  what  particular 
office,  or  from  what  government,  I  cannot  now 
recollect.  He  was  a  trader,  pretty  wealthy,  and 
drank  freely." " 

So  far  as  yet  appears,  De  Saible  was  the  sole 
settler  of  Chicago  for  seventeen  years,  when  he 
sold  his  cabin  and  other  local  interests  to  Le  Mai, 
a  French  trader.  Other  fur  traders  were  there 
meanwhile,  but  only  transient ;  for  Burnett,  trading 
on  the  Kankakee  in  1790-91,  says:  "The  Potta- 
watomies at  Chicago  have  killed  a  Frenchman 
about  twenty  days  ago.     They  say  there  is  plenty 

1  "Wisconsin  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  iii.  p.  292. 


60  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

of  Frenchmen."  ^  As  a  dwelling-place,  therefore, 
with  historic  germs,  this  cabin  is  the  embryo  of 
Chicago,  and  her  history  proper  dates  from  it. 

Yet  only  in  his  last  years  there  was  Baptiste  on 
ground  fully  and  absolutely  owned  by  the  United 
States  ;  for  the  Indian  title  was  not  extinguished  till 
the  treaty  of  Greenville,  1795,  From  the  opening 
of  the  French  war,  1754,  the  northwestern  fron- 
tier liad  been  sorely  tried  and  wasted  by  Indian 
wars.  When  General  Wayne  assumed  command 
over  that  district,  he  moved  with  so  much  rapidity 
and  force  as  to  gain  from  the  Indians  a  name 
translated  The  Tempest,  or  Big  Wind ;  they  prob- 
ably meant  Cyclone.  He  soon  bore  down  all  op- 
position and  brought  twelve  of  tlie  subdued  tribes 
to  the  council  of  Fort  Greenville,  by  the  treaty 
of  which  an  immense  region  west  of  the  Ohio  and 
south  of  the  Lakes  was  ceded,  as  well  as  a  large 
square  embracing  each  of  the  military  posts,  not 
included  in  the  general  cession.  This  treaty  ex- 
tino;uished  the  Indian  title  to  Chicago  and  its 
environs  by  these  words  :  "  One  piece  of  land  six 
miles  square,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Chekajo  River 
emptying  into  the  southwest  end  of  Lake  Michi- 
gan." Soon  after  that  region  came  into  American 
hands  by  the  treaty  of  Greenville  there  were  antici- 
pations and  rumors  of  a  garrison  at  Chicago ;  and 
an  energetic  and  adventurous  trader  thus  writes  to 
a  Mr.  Porthier,  a  merchant  at  Mackinaw:  — 

^   Chicago  Antiquities,  p.  57. 


AN'CIENT    CHICAGO.  61 

"  I  have  reason  to  expect  that  they  [the  garrison] 
will  be  over  there  this  fall;  and  should  it  be  the 
case,  and  as  I  have  a  house  there  already  and  a 
promise  of  assistance  from  headquarters,  I  will  have 
occasion  for  a  good  deal  of  liquors  and  some  other 
articles  for  that  post.  Therefore,  should  there  be 
a  garrison  at  Chicago  this  fall  1  will  write  for  an 
addition  of  articles  to  my  order." 

The  garrison  was  not  long  in  coming,  and  no 
doubt  "a  good  deal  of  liquors"  soon  followed. 
In  1803,  Capt.  John  Whistler,  of  the  army  at  De- 
troit, was  ordered  to  build  and  occupy  a  post  at 
Chicago.  From  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Joseph  the 
officers,  father  and  son,  with  their  wives,  came 
down  the  lake  in  a  row-boat,  and  so  the  first  two 
white  women  entered  Chicago.  The  settlement 
then  consisted  of  four  traders'  cabins,  the  occu- 
pants of  which  were  Canadian  French,  with  their 
Indian  wives.  The  post  was  named  Fort  Dear- 
born, in  honor  of  Gen.  Henry  Dearborn,  then  Sec- 
retary of  War. 

The  year  following,  tlie  first  white  family  moved 
into  Chicago.  This  w^as  John  Kinzie,  wife,  and 
infant  sou,  John  H.,  from  the  vicinity  of  Niles, 
Michigan.  He  bought  of  Le  Mai  the  old  cabin 
of  De  Saible,  which  he  enlarged  and  improved, 
aud  for  many  years  it  was  the  only  dwelling  of 
white  men  in  that  settlement  of  now  three  quar- 
ters of  a  million  of  people.      He   was  properly 


62  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

called  the  Father  of  Chicago,  and  yet  lie  died  as 
recently  as  18:^8 ;  nor  as  a  city  father  did  he  live 
long  enough  to  see  great  results.  Tlu-ee  years  be- 
fore he  died  tlie  village  consisted  of  only  fourteen 
houses,  —  all  log-cabins,  —  with  a  total  town  tax 
of  $90.47.  The  ilrst  frame  building  for  business 
was  not  built  till  he  had  been  gone  four  years. 

When  Fort  Dearborn  was  built,  the  Government 
also  established  under  its  guns  an  Indian  Agency 
and  trading-house  for  the  four  nearest  tribes, 
with  the  purpose  that  all  business  between  them 
and  the  United  States,  and  questions  of  trouble 
between  the  Indians  and  other  parties,  might  there 
be  peaceably  and  justly  disposed  of.  It  was  also 
the  plan  of  the  Government  to  draw,  through  such 
agencies,  the  Indian  trade  under  its  own  control, 
and  shield  the  Indians  from  the  corruptions  and 
abuses  of  the  Indian  traders.  But  the  system 
failed.  The  agents,  selected  from  the  East  in  the 
way  of  favor,  ignorant  of  Indian  and  border  life, 
proved  no  match  for  the  old  border  traders  and 
wily  half-breeds.  An  extract  from  one  report  will 
sample  the  results  :  — 

"  An  intelligent  gentleman  who  has  just  visited 
Chicago  informed  me,  July,  1820,  that  there  were 
goods  at  that  place  to  the  value  of  twenty  thousand 
dollars,  which  cost  more  at  Georgetown  than  the 
traders  ask  for  their  goods  at  the  post  of  delivery, 
and   that  the  goods    are    inferior   in  quality  and 


ANCIENT    CHICAGO.  Go 

selected  with  less  judgment  than  tliose  of  the 
traders ;  that  only  twenty-five  dollars'  worth  of 
furs  was  sold  by  the  factor  at  Chicago ;  that  the 
Government  makes  no  profit  on  its  capital,  and 
pays  the  superintendents,  factors,  and  sub-factors, 
and  their  clerks  out  of  their  funds."  ^ 

The  citation  takes  us  back  three  quarters  of  a 
century,  yet  we  need  not  go  back  the  tenth  of  a 
decade  to  find  appointments  to  the  border  as  inapt 
for  tlie  good  of  the  Indian  or  of  the  United  States. 
A  civil  service  reform  in  our  time,  with  competi- 
tive examination  of  candidates  for  salaries  and 
chances  there,  and  on  such  topics  as  Indian  his- 
tory, Indian  nature,  habits,  and  present  condition, 
the  scalp  dance,  green-corn  feast,  and  drunken  rows 
around  smuggled  whiskey,  and  plots  of  speculators 
for  breaking  treaties  and  seizing  reservations,  would 
set  aside  many  tide-water  applicants  "  totally 
unacquainted  with  the  Indian  country."  And  an 
extension  of  this  "service  reform"  to  benevolent 
organizations  and  offices  might  stay  some  from 
rashly  assuming  official  and  public  work  and  hon- 
ors beyond  the  Mississippi,  who  had  never  yet 
seen  the  waters  of  that  river,  nor  even  Cincinnati 
and  Chicago. 

The  early  years  of  this  century  moved  on  with 
a  weary  sameness  by  Fort  Dearborn.     A  morning 

^  Report  on  Indian  Affairs  to  John  C.  Calhoun,  Secretary  of 
War,  from  a  Tour  made  1820.    By  Jedidiah  Morse,  D.D,  p.  48. 


64  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

and  evening  gun  could  wake  the  primeval  still- 
ness of  that  far  northwest  village,  where  now 
human  voices  and  the  locomotive  and  mill-whis- 
tles and  the  rattling  industries  of  an  immense 
city  are  making  a  perpetual  riot  of  civiliza- 
tion. Indian  bands  came  and  went  stealthily  and 
in  absolute  silence,  with  moccasin  and  paddle ; 
packs  of  peltry  and  fur  made  no  noise  as  red 
trappers  and  white  traders  laid  them  down  on  the 
mud  levee  of  the  North  Branch  and  South  Branch ; 
Pottawatomies,  Sacs  and  Foxes,  and  Kickapoos 
came  in,  early  and  unfailing,  for  their  payments, 
and  the  "good  deal  of  liquors"  of  Porthier  strength- 
ened their  patience  in  waiting;  rarely  an  immi- 
grant or  traveller  was  challenged  by  the  sentinel 
at  this  extreme  point  of  American  life,  and  much 
more  rarely  the  birth  of  a  white  child  varied  the 
monotony.  But  the  commotion  of  a  storm  was 
soon  to  put  an  end  to  sameness. 

Prior  to  the  War  of  1812  there  was  a  growing  and 
hostile  uneasiness  among  the  Indians  of  the  North- 
west of  that  day.  They  regarded  with  anxiety  the 
approaching  and  constantly  aggressive  power  of  the 
whites,  while  English  influences  over  the  border 
turned  this  toward  an  embittered  hostility.  Te- 
cumseh,  a  Shawneese,  with  his  brother  the  Prophet, 
sought  to  organize  a  great  Indian  confederation 
against  the  white  movement  into  tlie  Northwest. 
To  this  end  he  visited  all  the  tribes  on  the  borders 
of   the  lakes  Michigan,  Huron,  and  Superior,  and 


ANCIENT    CHICAGO.  G5 

in  the  South,  the  Choctaws,  Cherokees,  and  Creeks, 
as  well  as  the  tribes  bordering  on  the  west  bank 
of  the  Mississippi.  His  success  was  not  perfect, 
but  it  was  formidable  ;  and  had  not  the  Propliet 
precipitated  the  result,  it  must  have  proved  most 
disastrous  to  our  whole  frontier.  While  Tecumseli 
was  in  the  South,  his  brother  brought  on  the  bat- 
tle of  Tippecanoe,  Nov.  7,  1811,  in  which  Gen- 
eral Harrison  decidedly  gained  the  day ;  and  if 
the  English  had  not  come  to  the  rescue  with  aid 
and  comfort,  the  confederacy  would  probably  then 
have  come  to  an  end.  War  with  England  was 
declared  the  next  June,  Fort  Mackinaw  was  sur- 
rendered to  the  Englisli,  and  orders  were  received 
to  abandon  Fort  Dearborn,  which  was  done  on  the 
15th  of  August.  In  conference  with  the  Indians 
then  surrounding  the  Fort,  it  was  agreed  that  this 
should  take  effect  in  mutual  peace  and  safety. 
But  the  Indians  proved  treacherous,  and  when  the 
garrison  and  outside  families  had  proceeded  but  a 
mile  or  more,  the  five  hundred  Pottawatomies,  who 
had  agreed  to  be  escorts,  fell  murderously  upon  the 
small  band.  Of  the  company  there  were  sixty- 
eight  soldiers,  but  a  large  number  were  on  the 
sick-list,  leaving  perhaps  forty  fighting  men.  With 
these  were  ten  or  twelve  women  and  twenty  chil- 
dren, —  about  one  hundred  souls.  It  was  hardly 
an  hour's  bloody  work,  and  twenty-five  of  the 
soldiers  and  eleven  women  and  children  remained 
and  surrendered.  The  fight,  after  the  first  onset, 
5 


66  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

was  hand  to  liand  and  tevribly  earnest,  even  the 
women  doing  their  full  share.  Hopelessness  cre- 
ated desperation,  and  al)out  fifteen  Indians  paid 
the  penalty  of  their  faithlessness. 

The  months  were  long  and  painful  before  it  was 
known  who  were  saved,  and  who  the  captives 
were,  and  much  longer  before  they  were  redeemed 
and  restored  to  kindred  and  friendly  hands.  The 
next  day  the  Fort  and  the  Indian  Agency  were 
burned.  The  day  of  the  massacre  was  marked 
also  in  the  dark  calendar  of  the  frontier  by  the  sur- 
render of  Detroit  to  the  English  by  General  Hull. 

For  four  years  the  cliarred  remains  of  the  Gov- 
ernment buildings  lay  untouched,  and  the  iive 
cabins  —  all  there  was  of  Chicago  as  a  settle- 
ment—  stood  vacant,  and  only  the  wolves  cared 
for  the  bodies  and  bones  of  the  men,  women,  and 
little  ones  who  perished,  —  more  than  sixty  in  all. 
Fort  Dearborn  was  rebuilt  in  1816  and  garrisoned 
with  two  companies  of  infantry.  One  of  the  first 
pious  acts  of  the  commandant.  Captain  Bradley, 
was  to  gather  tenderly  such  remains  of  the  massa- 
cred ones  as  the  elements  and  wild  animals  had 
left,  and  give  them  a  Christian  and  sacred  rest. 
One  by  one  the  fugitives  came  back,  timidly  and 
nervously,  as  on  bloody  ground  and  among  graves. 
Kinzie  led  the  way,  and  took  his  old  cabin  again,  — 
the  house  of  Le  Mai  and  of  De  Saible. 

Very  little  is  to  be  said  of  changes  in  Chicago 
between  the  rebuilding  of  the  Fort  and  1830.     At 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  67 

the  latter  date  Chicago  was  not  born,  nor  did  it 
by  incorporation  and  organization  enter  the  list 
of  American  towns  till  1833.  Meanwhile  a  stray- 
explorer  or  adventurer  and  a  fugitive  fact  enable  us 
at  this  late  day  to  keep  trace  of  the  IVontier  waif, 
yet  much  as  a  handful  of  ashes  in  the  drifting  sands 
tells  where  the  Arabs  camped  once  or  twice.  In 
1817  the  Hon.  Samuel  A.  Storrow,  Judge-Advo- 
cate of  the  Army,  visited  Fort  Dearborn,  where,  he 
says,  "  Major  Baker  and  the  officers  of  the  garrison 
received  me  as  one  arrived  from  the  moon." 

Strangers  arriving  in  that  city  now  do  not  so 
surprise  it,  nor  is  it  as  difficult  to  find  it  as  in 
those  earlier  days,  when  one  was  liable  to  miss 
the  trail  and  pass  the  town  without  seeing  it,  as 
one  incident  will  show.  In  1827  Col.  Ebenezer 
Childs  contracted  to  supply  Fort  Howard,  Wis- 
consin, with  beef,  and  left  for  Illinois  or  Missouri 
to  purchase  cattle,  and  he  says :  "  We  started  for 
Chicago,  took  the  wrong  trail,  and  went  too  far 
west.  .  .  .  We  got  out  of  provisions  the  fourth 
day.  I  found  an  Indian  Mdio  had  a  large  quantity 
of  muskrats ;  I  bought  a  number,  and  had  a  fine 
feast.  We  got  the  Indian  to  take  us  and  our  bag- 
gaq;e  across  the  Eau  Plaine  in  his  canoe,  making 
our  horses  swim  alongside.  We  learned  that  we 
had  passed  Chicago,  having  gone  some  fifteen 
miles  to  the  west.  The  Indian  put  us  on  the 
right  track,  and  we  arrived  at  Chicago  the  next 
morning  pretty  well  used  up." 


68  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

Tliree  years  later  Schoolcraft  found  four  or  five 
families  there,  and  among  thein  our  old  friend 
John  Kinzie,  whom,  in  1822,  Charles  C.  Trow- 
bridge met  there.  Kinzie  was  then  the  agent  of 
the  American  Fur  Company,  —  that  is,  John  Jacob 
Astor.  The  year  following  is  marked  by  a  more 
distinct  and  emphatic  record.  Colonel  Long,  of 
perpetual  memory  on  Long's  Peak,  then  spoke 
of  the  place  as  consisting  of  three  log-cabins 
"  inhabited  by  a  miserable  race  of  men  scarcely 
equal  to  the  Indians  from  whom  they  had  de- 
scended ; "  their  cabins  were  "  low,  filthy,  and  dis- 
gusting, displaying  not  the  least  trace  of  comfort," 
and  the  place  "affording  no  inducement  to  the 
settler." 

Ebenezer  Childs,  of  La  Crosse,  speaks  of  Chicago 
as  he  saw  it  in  1825  :  — 

"At  that  time  Chicago  was  merely  an  Indian 
agency.  It  contained  about  fourteen  houses,  and 
not  more  than  seventy-five  or  one  hundred  inhab- 
itants at  the  most.  An  agent  of  the  American 
Fur  Company,  named  Gurdon  S.  Hubbard,  then 
occupied  the  Fort.  The  staple  business  seemed 
to  be  carried  on  by  the  Indians  and  runaway  sol- 
diers, who  hunted  ducks  and  muskrats  in  the 
marshes." 

As  to  the  number  of  the  houses  and  of  the 
population  about  this  time  there  are  apparent  dis- 
crepancies in   the  authorities.     The  statements  of 


ANCIENT    CHICAGO.  69^ 

Mr.  Cliikls  apply  to  1825,  and  yet  we  are  iiifoniicd 
ill  1830,  "Surveyor  Thompson  found  seven  families 
only  outside  of  the  Fort."  The  infant  settlement 
was  exposed  to  a  second  massacre.  "In  1828  In- 
dian hostility  threatened  a  general  attack  on  the 
settlements  ;  but  after  the  murder  of  a  few  immi- 
grants a  large  volunteer  force,  added  to  the  regu- 
lars of  Fort  Dearborn  and  Fort  Armstrong  at  Eock 
Island,  overawed  the  savages  for  the  time." 

The  "Chicago  Directory "  for  1830  was  not  a 
very  portly  volume.  The  commercial  and  business 
sections  of  it  condensed  stand  thus  :  Taverns,  two  ; 
Indian  traders,  three;  butchers,  one;  merchants, 
one.  The  poll  list  for  the  county  election  that 
year  embraces  thirty-two  voters. 

lieligious  germs  did  not  appear  till  the  following 
year,  and  Mr.  Andreas  well  says,  "As  a  whole, 
the  Chicago  of  1831  could  not  have  been  consid- 
ered a  pious  town."  The  Methodists  were  first  on 
the  ground,  as  is  usual  on  the  frontier,  always 
excepting  the  Jesuits,  where  there  are  Indian  and 
Canadian  village.s.  Protestantism  would  spread 
more  rapidly  and  vigorously  if  its  adherents  were 
as  faithful  as  the  lioman  Catholics  in  carrying 
their  religion  always  with  them.  The  quality  of 
the  two  forms  of  Christianity  is,  of  course,  another 
matter ;  but  they  carry  tlieir  best. 

The  opening  of  the  school  system  in  Chicago  is 
quite  romantic.  In  1810  a  spelling-book  found 
its  way  to  this  lone  village  in  a  chest  of.  tea  from 


70  ANCIENT    CHICAGO. 

Detroit,  and  came  into  the  already  historic  house 
of  Baptiste  Point  de  Saible,  then  occupied  by 
Kinzie.  In  the  family  was  a  son,  John  H.,  and 
his  cousin,  Eobert  A.  Forsyth,  afterward  paymaster 
in  tlie  United  States  Army,  who  assumed  the  posi- 
tion of  instructor.  The  teacher  was  thirteen  years 
old,  his  pupil  six,  the  course  of  study  tliis  spelling- 
book,  and  the  school  building  was  the  "  Kinzie 
house." 

The  first  formal  school  was  opened  in  1816  in  a 
log-house,  once  used  as  a  bakery,  in  tlie  rear  part 
of  Kinzie's  garden.  The  pupils  were  this  Kinzie 
boy,  his  brother,  and  two  sisters,  and  three  or  four 
children  from  the  Fort.  In  1820  a  school  was 
taught  in  tlie  Fort,  and  nine  years  later  we  find 
it  in  a  room  "near  the  garrison."  In  1830  its 
twenty-five  pupils  are  in  "  a  large,  low,  gloomy 
log-building,  which  had  five  rooms."  The  main 
school-room  was  finally  made  cheerful  by  the  white 
cotton  sheeting  which  covered  the  ugly  walls.  It 
was  a  private  school  and  Mrs.  Forbes  shared  in 
the  charge  with  her  husband,  while  she  managed 
the  domestic  apartments  of  the  same  building. 
Mr.  Forbes  afterward  was  promoted  to  the  office 
of  sheriff  of  the  county,  —  whether  from  aptness 
shown  in  catching  and  holding  frontier  children 
is  not  stated. 

While  these  varied  items  of  fur  trade,  fighting, 
and  education  were  working  into  a  thread  of  his- 
tory on    that    section  of    the  "  Chicagou    route " 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  71 

between  Canada  and  the  Louisiana,  the  coming 
civilization  was  agitating  the  Northwest  Territory. 
Immigration  had  made  its  trail  along  the  borders 
of  the  Lakes,  had  quite  generally  prospected  the 
valley  of  the  Ohio,  and  extended  to  the  Missis- 
sippi. As  early  as  1802  Kentucky,  Tennessee, 
and  Ohio  were  in  the  Union.  In  1809  the  north- 
ern boundary  of  the  Illinois  Territory  was  run  due 
west  from  the  southern  point  of  Lake  Michigan, 
which  left  Chicago,  the  Kinzie  boy,  and  his  spell- 
ing-book of  the  next  year  in  Wisconsin  Territory. 
After  the  rebuilding  of  the  Fort,  Aster's  fur-trading 
schooner  began  to  visit  the  lonely  town,  anchoring 
there  once  or  twice  a  year  among  innumerable 
water-fowl.  Excepting  canoes  and  batteaux,  this 
was  the  only  water  craft  that  greeted  it  for  many 
years.  In  1818  Illinois  came  into  the  Union  and 
Chicago  came  back  into  Illinois.  Between  1830 
and  1836  tliere  entered  the  town  in  close  and  tumul- 
tuous succession  the  usual  staples  of  a  young  and 
of  course  ambitious  frontier  settlement,  —  a  post- 
office  and  town  incorporation,  several  denomina- 
tional religions  by  organization,  a  newspaper,  a 
stage-line,  Indian  raids,  rude  bridges,  critical  foot- 
walks,  a  land  office,  and  a  canal  company  incorpo- 
rated in  1825  ;  the  capital  of  which  was  $1,000,000, 
while  the  total  valuation  of  all  the  land  within  the 
present  city  limits  was  under  $25,000,  and  tlie  town 
effected  a  loan  of  $60  for  street  improvements.  In 
1880  the  valuation  of  Chicago  was  $115,003,561, 


72  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

its  taxes  were  $3,829,618,  and  its  bonded  debt 
was  $12,752,000.  Scientific  accuracy  finds  a  strik- 
ing illustration  in  this  canal  project.  Five  routes 
for  it  were  surveyed  between  Lake  Michigan 
and  the  Illinois ;  the  lowest  estimate  of  construc- 
tion was  $639,946,  and  the  highest  $716,110,  and 
Government  made  a  land-grant  way  of  284,000 
acres ;  in  March,  1843,  the  enterprise  collapsed, 
after  an  expenditure  of  $5,139,492.03.  It  was  a 
State  project,  though  Chicago  was  eminent  in  it, 
and  in  the  year  of  incorporation  had  fourteen  tax- 
payers only,  with  an  aggregate  tax  of  $94.47.  The 
project  was  even  national,  for  President  Madison 
had  recommended  it  by  message  in  1814.  The 
same  project  gains  a  notice  in  the  "  St.  Louis 
Directory  and  Eegister  "  for  1821 :  "  In  the  course 
of  a  few  years  the  Illinois  Eiver  will  be,  most 
probably,  connected  with  Lake  Michigan."  Also 
municipal  regulations  came  in  over  the  seven  tav- 
erns, that  they  should  not  cliarge  more  than  twelve 
and  a  half  cents  for  a  lodging  or  for  a  half  pint 
of  whiskey,  or  more  than  twenty-five  cents  for  a 
breakfast,  or  for  half  a  pint  of  brandy,  or  rum,  or 
wine,  or  for  a  supper. 

Immigration  came  around  the  end  of  Lake  Michi- 
gan in  tidal  waves.  The  winter  of  1831-32  is  still 
carried  in  the  memories  of  some,  and  history  will 
never  forget  it,  Four  hundred  immigrants  were 
quartered  in  the  Fort,  and  as  the  intense  cold,  the 
Indians,  and  the  wolves  closed  in  on  the  scattered 


ANCIENT    CHICAGO.  73 

settlers,  tlie  entire  body  of  the  inhabitants  followed 
the  immigrants.  Tiie  summer  and  General  Scott 
raised  the  siege,  when  the  cholera  fell  on  them, 
coming  with  the  stately  general  on  the  first  steamer 
tliat  ever  entered  that  port. 

The  pulse  of  speculative  life  that  throbbed  vio- 
lently to  the  eastward  of  Lake  Michigan  affected 
the  finances  of  this  young  town.  The  Erie  Canal 
had  made  a  splendid  success,  and  brought  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  four  hundred  miles  nearer;  Ohio 
liad  rushed  in  growth ;  steamers  were  puffing  on 
inland  waters  which  canoes  had  hardly  abandoned, 
and  the  railroad  era  had  opened  in  the  seaboard 
States  with  almost  unlimited  fancies  of  sudden 
wealth.  Land  values  became  fabulously  increased 
on  an  infinite  frontier  of  acres  ;  thousands  of  miles 
of  railroad  were  projected  as  into  void  space ;  the 
work  and  growth  and  fortunes  of  the  next  genera- 
tion were  anticipated,  and  telescopic  values  were 
put  on  front  lots  and  corner  lots  and  water  lots 
about  the  lower  end  of  Lake  Michigan.  Chicago 
went  crazy  when  steamers  came  in  and  railroads 
promised  to  come.  She  did  not  then  know  that 
the  Mississippi  Valley  has  more  than  forty  rivers 
navigable  to  the  extent  of  more  than  fifteen  thou- 
sand miles,  and  could  possibly  postpone  the  rail- 
road era.  Immigration  flooded  the  city.  Between 
April  and  September,  18:54,  a  hundred  immigrant 
vessels  landed  their  burdens  of  men,  hungry  and 
famishing  for  land,  while  the  procession  in  carriage 


74:  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

and  saddle  and  on  foot  was  continuous ;  and  in 
twelve  months  the  pupulaLiun  went  up  eight-fold. 
So  rife  was  speculation,  that  the  town  could  not 
borrow  two  thousand  dollars  at  ten  per  cent.  Real 
money  or  coin  disappeared  except  at  the  land 
office,' — where  it  alone  availed  for  land,  and  at 
a  dollar  and  a  quarter  an  acre,  —  and  promissory 
notes,  collaterals,  and  various  wild  paper  flooded 
the  market. 

Meanwhile  the  average  American,  with  his  love 
of  law  and  order,  was  there,  and  gambling-houses, 
Sabbath-breaking,  liquor-saloons,  and  shooting  with- 
in town  limits  were  prohibited,  and  officials  were 
required  to  give  bonds.  The  land  fever  and  the 
frenzy  of  speculation  increased  in  wiklness  till 
1837.  A  crash  then  came,  as  a  cyclone  comes, 
only  that  it  was  of  immense  advantage  to  Chicago 
in  bringing  it  to  its  senses  and  to  old-fashioned 
realities.  In  the  year  preceding,  and  before  the 
town  "came  to  itself,"  its  exports,  total,  were 
$1,000.64,  and  its  imports  were  $325,203.90 ;  and 
it  was  not  till  1842  that  as  much  was  shipped 
off  as  was  received,  when  the  population  was 
6,590. 

Nothing  could  repress  the  city  ;  reverses  and 
checks  could  only  consolidate  it.  The  position 
was  a  foreordination  to  growth  and  greatness,  and 
its  success  was  inevitable  and  irresistible.  Its 
splendid  future  was  made  evident  and  certain 
when  the  canal  was  opened  in  1848  from  the  city 


ANXIENT    CHICAGO.  75 

to  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  Illinois,  and  a 
railroad  with  the  East  in  1852.  Chicago  was 
naturally  located  at  one  of  the  few  roundiug-points 
in  the  highways  of  the  world,  and  yet  a  thousand 
miles  inland.  Tliese  two  grand  connections  with 
the  business  world  —  canal  and  rail,  especially  the 
one  by  rail  —  admitted  it  to  that  family  of  cos- 
mopolitan cities  any  one  of  w]jich  is  a  centre  for 
the  trading  nations.  The  locomotive,  which  so 
ignores  locality  and  makes  the  world  migratory, 
made  the  city  permanent  when  it  arrived ;  and  it 
occasioned  the  pithy  remark  that  "up  to  1852 
nobody  residing  in  Chicago  considered  himself 
permanently  settled." 

In  1838  shippers  of  hides  ventured,  with  much 
solicitude,  to  export  for  a  market  seventy-eight 
bushels  of  wheat.  Fcjrty-two  years  later  the  city 
exported  by  water  and  land  22,796,288  bushels 
of  wheat,  and  2,862,737  barrels  of  wheat  flour, 
making  a  total  equivalent  of  35,678,60-4  bushels 
of  wheat.i 

In  1833  a  citizens'  meeting  was  convened  to 
incorporate  the  town.  The  total  nund:)er  of  legal 
voters  was  twelve,  and  against  one  negative  the 
incorporation  was  secured.  One  of  the  first  town 
ordinances  was  to  prohibit  live  pigs  in  the  streets. 

1  Wheat  ranges  from  four  to  six  bushels  to  a  barrel  of  flour, 
according  to  the  grade  of  wheat  and  of  flour.  The  above  esti- 
mate is  on  the  average  for  1879,  which  was  four  and  a  half 
bushels  to  the  barrel. 


7G  ANCIENT    CHICAGO. 

Ill  1880  ChicaL,ni  handled,  through  her  streets, 
7,059,355  of  them,  besides  39,091  barrels  of  dressed 
pork. 

The  first  white  settler,  Marquette,  spent  a  winter 
there,  and  supplied  his  family  market  with  bufl'alo, 
deer,  and  turkey,  shot  from  his  own  cabin  door. 
In  1880  Chicago  had  for  disposal,  not  to  mention 
other  meats,  1,382,477  beef  cattle. 

On  the  6th  of  May,  1635,  the  General  Court 
of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  passed  the  fol- 
lowing law :  — 

"  It  is  ordered  that  it  shalbe  lawfull  for  Mr. 
Leveredge  to  transporte  ten  bushells  of  corne  out 
of  this  jurisdiccon,  notwithstanding  any  former 
order  to  the  contrary."  ^ 

At  that  time  the  region  of  Chicago  was  a  good 
thousand  miles  into  the  absolutely  unknown  West. 
Marquette  and  La  Salle  were  yet  unborn.  It  is 
yet,  then,  in  the  Massachusetts  General  Court, 
thirty-five  years  before  the  first  white  man, 
La  Salle,  shall  see  the  present  site  of  Chicago. 
In  1880  Chicago,  with  no  permit  from  any  court, 
exported  93,500,000  bushels  of  corn.  For  six 
months,  ending  with  October,  1880,  the  receipts 
of  corn  averaged  more  than  one  thousand  cars 
of  24,000  pounds  each  for  every  working-day, — 
that  is,  there  came  into  the  city  428,571  bushels 
of  corn  a  day.     In  1837  the  water-works  of  Chicago 

^  Records  of  Mass.ic]msots  Bay  Colony,  1635,  vol.  i.  p.  148. 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  /  i 

consisted  of  a  hogshead  on  wheels,  with  bucket 
and  faucet,  for  any  one  who  would  hail  the  wan- 
dering cistern,  —  such  water- works  as  the  writer 
I'ound  in  Leadville  in  1880.  Now,  Chicago  lifts 
Lake  Michigan  as  a  goblet  to  her  750,000  pairs 
of  thirsty  lips. 

Andreas  gives  a  good  pen-picture  of  the  town  as 
it  appeared  in  the  year  of  its  incorporation  :  — 

"  The  village  was  built  along  the  south  side  of 
"Water  Street,  and  westerly  toward  the  settlement 
at  the  forks.  There  were  scattered  shanties  over 
the  prairie  south,  and  a  few  rough,  iinpainted 
buildings  had  been  improvised  on  the  north  side, 
between  the  old  Kinzie  house  and  what  is  now 
Clark  Street.  All  together,  it  would,  in  the  light 
of  1833,  have  presented  a  most  woe-begone  appear- 
ance, even  as  a  frontier  town  of  the  lowest  class. 
It  did  not  show  a  single  steeple,  nor  a  chimney 
four  feet  above  any  roof.  A  flag-staff  at  the  Fort, 
some  fifty  feet  high,  flaunted,  in  pleasant  weather 
and  on  holidays,  a  weather-beaten  flag  as  an  em- 
blem of  civilization,  patriotic  pride,  national  do- 
main, or  anj^thing  else  that  might  stir  the  hearts 
of  the  denizens  of  the  town.  The  buildings  of  the 
Fort  were  low-posted,  and  none  of  them  exceeding 
two  stories  in  height." 

The  first  frame  house  for  business  had  been  built 
only  the  year  before,  and  the  first  for  religious  and 
educational   purposes,  in   part,  this  same  year  of 


78  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

town  organization.  In  a  private  letter  to  the 
author,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jeremiah  Porter  says  :  "  There 
was  not  a  framed  dwelling-house  in  town  in  ]\Iay, 
1833,  and  only  three  framed  stores."  The.  pop- 
nlation  at  the  time  of  incorporation  was  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty,  in  which  were  eight  physi- 
cians and  six  lawyers;  nevertheless  the  population 
increased  in  numbers  and  grew  in  prosperity ! 
The  second  hotel  (the  Tremont),  built  expressly 
for  such  use,  was  added  to  make  this  year  event- 
ful ;  and  yet  so  rural  was  Chicago  then,  that  its 
guests  could  lounge  on  its  steps  and  shoot  wild 
fowl  in  the  slough  before  the  door. 

These  glances  at  ancient  Chicago  would  not  be 
perfect  if  one  scene  were  omitted.  In  1831  about 
four  thousand  Indians  surrounded  the  town  with 
their  wigwams,  and  covered  the  lake,  shores,  and 
creeks  with  their  canoes,  and  trailed  their  blankets 
along  the  walks  of  the  village.  They  were  laden 
witli  their  arms  and  paint,  and  carried  no  extra 
friendliness  in  their  looks  and  manners.  It  was 
pay-day  on  the  border,  and  the  United  States  offi- 
cers were  there  to  pass  over  the  annuities.  The 
outside  farmers,  and  the  villagers  too,  might  be 
excused  for  some  nervousness,  for  Black  Hawk's 
band  had  recently  gone  quite  unwillingly  to  the 
west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  it  was  known  that 
emissaries  from  it  were  among  the  four  thousand 
to  beget  a  bloody  outbreak.  The  September  skies 
were  peaceful  and  balmy,  and  yet  it  was  an  apt 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  79 

time  for  tlie  Imrricane.  Had  the  Indian  tornado 
burst  on  them,  they  well  knew  that  their  two 
hundred  men,  women,  and  children  would  have 
gone  like  leaves  before  the  whirlwind  of  four 
thousand.  It  was  almost  ready,  but  did  not  burst 
till  the  next  year ;  and  the  haughty,  angered,  and 
drunken  braves  took  their  annuities,  and  went  off 
moody  and  disappointed  that  they  had  no  scalps 
to  carry  l)ack.  We  can  appreciate  the  scene  and 
anxieties,  from  our  experience  at  Keokuk  ten  years 
later.  It  was  when  that  town  consisted  of  twelve 
log  and  two  frame  houses  tliat  we  were  detained 
there  some  days.  The  Iowa  Territory  Indians  were 
there  in  multitude,  and  were  proving  the  thirteen 
saloons  in  those  twelve  log-houses  —  one  double  — 
while  their  head  men  were  gone  down  to  St.  Louis 
for  their  annuities.  In  later  years  we  found  it 
another  affair  and  wholly  agreeable  to  spend  some 
time  with  twenty-five  hundred  in  a  great  Indian 
fair  at  JMuscogee,  in  the  Indian  Territory. 

The  year  1833  was  an  important  one  for  the 
town  in  many  respects,  and  indeed  it  miglit  be 
said  that  ancient  Chicago  was  terminated  by  it. 
We  have  tlierefore  tarried  in  collecting  items 
which  would  show  it  at  that  time,  and  now  turn 
for  a  moment  to  private  and  unpublished  papers 
for  still  more.  Our  correspondent  had  been  for 
about  two  years  post  chaplain  at  FoTt  Brady, 
Sault  St.  Marie,  outlet  of  Lake  Superior.  He 
writes :  — 


80  ANCIENT   CHICAGO. 

"  Wo  sailed  from  the  Sault,  May  4,  1833;  found 
no  settlement  on  the  western  shore  of  Luke  Michi- 
gan except  the  trading  post  of  the  American  Fur 
Company  at  Milwaukee;  reached  tiie  anchorage 
off  Fort  Dearborn  Sunday  morning,  May  13.  No 
harbor,  and  sea  so  rough  we  could  not  go  ashore  that 
day,  and  lay  seasick,  in  our  bertlis.  .  .  .  Major  Fowle 
had  prepared  for  me  a  preaching  place  in  Fort 
Dearborn,  there  being  none  but  a  log  schoolhouse 
in  town.  That  was  the  carpenter's  shop.  In  it  I 
preached  the  first  Sabbath  morning,  May  20, 1833, 
from  the  words,  '  Herein  is  my  Father  glorified, 
that  ye  bear  much  fruit.'  .  .  .  Mine  was  the  first 
church  ever  organized  at  Chicago  since  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world ;  and  on  the  26th  of  June,  1833, 
by  adopting  the  confession  of  faith  of  the  Presby- 
tery of  Detroit,  —  the  nearest  to  us.  .  .  .  By  the 
1st  of  January,  1834,  I  preached  the  dedication 
sermon  of  our  house  of  worship.  It  stood  '  way 
out  on  the  prairie,'  between  where  now  stands  the 
Sherman  House  and  Lake  Street.  ...  In  an  un- 
finished loft  of  one  of  tlie  three  framed  houses  was 
my  bedroom  and  study,  and,  for  a  time,  Sabbath- 
school  room.  .  .  .  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  and  all  the 
Northwest  were  then  the  abode  of  wild  Indians."  ^ 

Dr.  Porter  adds  an  item  which  should  be 
expanded   to  complete  the  view  of  our   ancient 

1  Jeremiah  Porter,  D.D. ,  Fort  Sill,  Indian  Territory,  Nov.  3, 
1873.     Private  letter. 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  81 

Chicago.  Among  the  wasting  remnants  of  our  In- 
dians there  probably  are  not  enough  now  within 
any  single  call  to  repeat  the  scene.  He  says  : 
"  Five  thousand  Indians,  assembled,  came  to  make 
terms  of  surrender  of  Illinois  and  Wisconsin  lands 
for  others  west  of  the  Mississippi  Eiver.  .  .  .  Tlie 
council  was  held  on  the  prairie  on  the  north  side 
of  the  river,  in  front  of  my  study  window,  and  in 
plain  vieAv."  This  was  the  gathering  for  the  great 
Indian  Treaty  of  1833,  under  which  the  united 
Chippewa,  Ottawa,  and  Pottawatomie  Indians  were 
moved  to  the  eastern  bank  of  tlie  Missouri  in  the 
region  of  Council  Bluffs,  and  the  United  States 
took  their  abandoned  lands  in  Illinois  and  Wiscon- 
sin, —  about  five  millions  of  acres.  The  same  num- 
ber were  accorded  to  these  Indians  for  their  new 
home.  It  might  as  well  have  been  fifty  millions  ; 
for  it  was  a  nominal  affair  with  the  chiefs,  when 
they  signed  the  treaty  with  their  "  mark,"  feasted 
and  drunken  by  the  other  "  high  contracting  party;" 
and  when  Iowa  and  other  Western  growths  pressed 
on  them  like  high  tides,  they  were  lifted  as  waifs 
and  thrown  farther  west. 

A  few  graphic  passages  from  Charles  J.  Latrobe, 
an  English  traveller,  and  an  honored  guest  at  the 
council,  will  best  show  us  the  neighbors,  Indian  and 
white,  to  the  minister's  study  on  that  occasion. 

The  Indians  "were  encamped  on  all  sides,  —  on 
the  wide  level  prairie  beyond  the  scattered  vil- 
lage ;  beneath  the  shelter  of  the  low  woods  which 
6 


82  AN'CIENT   CHICAGO. 

checkered  them  ;  on  the  side  of  the  small  river, 
or  to  the  leeward  of  the  sand-hills  near  the  back 
of  the  lake.  .  .  .  The  little  village  was  in  an 
uproar  from  morning  to  night  and  from  night  to 
morning;  for  during  the  hours  of  darkness,  when 
the  housed  portion  of  the  population  of  Chicago 
strove  to  obtain  repose  in  the  crowded  plank  edi- 
fices of  the  village,  the  Indians  howled,  sang,  wept, 
yelled,  and  whooped  in  their  various  encampments. 
With  all  this,  the  whites  seemed  to  me  to  be  more 
pagan  than  the  red  man.  .  .  .  Far  and  wide  the 
grassy  prairie  teemed  w^ith  figures,  —  warriors 
mounted  or  on  foot,  squaws  and  horses.  Here  a 
race  between  three  or  four  Indian  ponies,  each 
carrying  a  double  rider,  whooping  and  yelling  like 
fiends ;  there  a  solitary  horseman,  with  a  long 
spear,  turbaned  like  an  Arab,  scouring  along  at 
full  speed  ;  groups  of  hobbled  horses  ;  Indian  dogs 
and  children ;  or  a  grave  conclave  of  gray  chiefs 
seated  on  the  ground  in  consultation.  .  .  .  Emi- 
grants and  land  speculators  as  numerous  as  the 
sand;  you  will  find  horse-dealers  and  horse-steal- 
ers,  rogues  of  every  description,  white,  black,  brown, 
and  red ;  half-breeds,  quarter-breeds,  and  men  of 
no  breed  at  all ;  men  pursuing  Indian  claims ; 
sharpers  of  every  degree ;  pedlers,  grog-sellers, 
Indian  agents  and  Indian  traders  of  every  de- 
scription, and  contractors  to  supply  the  Potta- 
watomies  with  food.  .  .  .  The  quarters  [in  Fort 
Dearborn]   were  too    confined   to   afford  place  of 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  83 

residence  for  the  Government  commissioners,  for 
whom  and  a  crowd  of  dependents  a  temporary  set 
of  plank  huts  were  erected  on  the  north  side 
of  the  river.  ...  It  is  a  grievous  thing,  —  the 
shameful  and  scandalous  sale  of  whiskey  to  tliese 
poor  miserable  wretches.  But  here  lie  casks  of 
it  under  the  very  eye  of  the  commissioners,  met 
together  for  purposes  which  demand  that  sobriety 
sliould  be  maintained.  .  .  .  The  council  fire  was 
lighted  under  a  spacious  ojien  shed  on  the  green 
meadow  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  from 
that  on  which  the  fort  stood."  The  position  of 
the  two  parties  in  the  council  lodge  was  most  sig- 
nificant, though,  of  course,  not  intended  to  be  so. 
"  The  glorious  light  of  the  setting  sun  streaming 
in  under  the  low  roof  of  the  council-house  fell  full 
on  the  countenances  of  the  former  [the  whites], 
while  the  pale  light  of  the  east  hardly  lighted  up 
the  dark  and  painted  lineaments  of  the  poor  In- 
dians, whose  souls  evidently  clave  to  their  birth- 
right in  that  quarter."  ^  The  position  of  the  two 
parties  in  this  grand  Indian  council  at  Chicago  on 
that  September  day,  1833,  was  painfully  and  sadly 
historic  and  prophetic.  The  Indians  looking  east- 
ward and  backward  and  despondent,  and  the  white 
man  looking  westward  and  forward  and  ardent,  — 
that  is  the  history  of  the  two  races  in  this  country. 
Ou  the  Indian  side  the  Treaty  has  the  fallowing 

1  The  Ramhler  in  North  Americn,  1832,  1833.     By  Charles 
Joseph  Latrobe.     Two  volumes.     Vol.  II.,  Letter  XI. 


84  ANCIENT    CHICAGO. 

indorsement :  "  The  undersigned,  chiefs  and  head 
men  of  the  said  nations  of  Indians,  have  hereunto 
set  their  hands  at  Chicago  the  said  day  and  year, 
Sept.  26,  1833."  Then  follows  the  signature  of 
seventy-seven  Indian  names,  and  against  each  "  his 
X  mark."  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  Chicago  Board 
of  Trade  never  did  so  much  business  on  one  day  as 
was  done  on  this  day  in  the  transfer  of  land. 

The  post-office  is  a  good  index  to  the  state  of  a 
community,  and  the  lirst  one  of  Ancient  Chicago 
was  characteristic  of  frontier  America.  In  that 
hard  winter  of  1831-32,  memorable  in  the  liistory 
of  the  present  magnificent  city,  a  tough  half-breed 
went  on  foot  once  a  fortnight  to  Niles,  Michigan, 
ninety  miles  away,  to  carry  and  bring  the  mail. 
Though  tliis  date  is  so  recent  in  our  national 
annals,  it  should  be  noticed  that  no  steamer  had 
yet  touched  at  Chicago.  Only  light  sails,  Macki- 
naws,  birches,  and  pirogues  had  then  rounded 
Wolf  Point,  the  angle  of  land  between  the  North 
and  South  Branch.  The  year  following,  1832,  the 
first  steamboat  arrived  at  Chicago,  bringing  the 
eminent  General  Scott  to  take  a  hand  in  the  Black 
Hawk  war,  already  well  over,  and  the  cholera  came 
with  the  General.  This  same  year  witnessed  the 
appointment  of  a  new  postmaster  of  the  prophetic 
city,  like  Paris  and  St.  Petersburg  rising  from  the 
mud.  Postmaster  Hogan  signalized  his  admin- 
istration, and  no  doubt  made  political  capital,  by 
two  improvements  on  the  half-breed  arrangement. 


ANCIENT    CHICAGO.  85 

He  secured  a  weekly  mail  on  horseback  from 
Niles,  and  inaugurated  the  private-box  system. 
This  consisted  of  a  row  of  old  boots  nailed  to  the 
rude  log  walls,  bearing  the  name  of  such  as  had  a 
heavy  correspondence.  The  occasional  letter  was 
served  in  a  more  democratic  way,  even  much  later, 
as  a  private  letter  informs  me.  "  My  husband, 
A.  D.  Reed,  of  Boston,  came  out  to  Illinois  in  Oc- 
tober, 1837,  on  horseback,  in  company  with  Colonel 
Porter,  from  Rochester.  Tliey  were  prospecting 
for  the  purpose  of  locating  and  investing  in  lauds. 
Stopping  at  Chicago,  they  inquired  at  the  post- 
otfice  for  letters,  and  the  letters  were  turned  out 
of  a  bushel  basket  on  a  table.  Among  these  they 
searched  for  any  that  might  belong  to  them."  All 
this  is  somewhat  in  contrast  with  the  Chicago  post- 
office  of  to-day.  An  official  statement,  courteously 
given  me  on  request,  under  date  of  October,  1886, 
furnishes  the  following  facts :  Number  of  letters, 
postal  cards,  and  circulars  despatched  daily  and 
mailed  in  Chicago,  360,000 ;  printed  matter  and  mer- 
chandise, 49,903  pieces;  pieces  of  second-class  mat- 
ter, 125,000.  Here  is  the  daily  despatch  of  534,903 
pieces  of  mail  matter  originating  in  the  city.  The 
aggregate  weight,  not  including  second-class  matter, 
was  25,372  pounds.  For  carrying  off  the  mails 
of  Chicago  there  are  used,  on  a  daily  average, 
1,386  canvas  sacks,  making  an  annual  total  of 
499,272  sacks,  and  an  annual  total  of  125,684 
lock-pouches. 


8G  ANCIENT    CHICAGO. 

The  amount  of  money  received  for  money-orders 
between  July  1,  1883,  and  June  30,  1886,  was 
$4,585,600.40,  and  the  amount  paid  out  for  money- 
orders  for  the  same  time  was  $23,322,029.84.  At 
date  of  statement  the  number  of  lock-boxes  —  not 
old  boots  —  was  774,  the  number  of  clerks  was 
518,  and  the  number  of  carriers  was  358. 

This  weiglit  of  mail  is  marvellously  in  excess 
of  the  fortnightly  burden  of  the  half-breed  carrier. 
It  would  have  required  many  scores  of  blanketed 
Pottawatomies  and  Black  Hawk  spies  to  carry  up 
the  population  to  the  present  number  of  post- 
oftice  men.  The  tramping  and  hurrying  proces- 
sion through  the  corridors  and  halls  of  the  present 
office,  with  the  clicking  of  lock-boxes  and  the  calls 
at  the  general  deliveries,  is  strongly  in  contrast 
with  Hogan's  log-room  and  boot-boxes.  Mr.  Eeed 
would  hardly  recognize  bis  bushel  basket  in  the 
present  edifice. 

Our  Eastern  friends  of  the  basket  post-office  had 
a  fancy  to  feed  their  two  saddle  horses  with  oats 
while  they  took  refreshments  "  at  a  rude  kind  of 
building"  called  a  tavern,  and  prospected  the  vil- 
lage for  possible  investments.  "They  inquired 
for  oats  to  feed  their  horses,  and  were  informed 
that  none  were  to  be  had  in  town,  which  circum- 
stance decided  them  to  ride  on,  and  probably  pre- 
vented their  making  a  profitable  investment  in 
land  there."  However,  Mr.  Eeed  thought  better 
of  the  oatless  town,  and   afterward  returned  to 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  87 

permanent  residence  there,  and  must  have  been 
satisfied  finally  in  the  call  fur  his  favorite  grain ; 
for  in  the  last  year  of  his  residence  there  (187C) 
Chicago  received  23,490,915  bnshels  of  oats.  Here 
were  oats  enough  to  bait  ninety-four  millions  of 
horses  with  a  peck  apiece.  Tliat  is  more  than 
thirteen  times  the  number  of  all  the  fed  horses 
in  the  United  States  at  the  last  census.  When  in 
later  years  Mr.  Eeed  was  president  of  one  of  the 
Chicago  banks,  he  found  his  mail  better  served 
than  by  the  early  method  of  bushel  baskets. 

It  was  in  1846  that  Sir  Eobert  Peel  predicted 
in  Parliament  tliat  two  towns  in  interior  America 
would  by  and  by  rival  Odessa  and  Dantzic  in 
the  grain  market  of  the  world,  and  he  mentioned 
Chicago  and  Milwaukee.  Tliese  towns  had  never 
before  been  spoken  of  in  Parliament,  and  were 
quite  unknown  to  some  geographical  experts  in 
that  body.  To  the  whispered  question  what  he 
called  them,  the  answer  was  tlie  quite  indefinite 
one,  "  Some  Indian  places."  The  remark  of  Sir 
Robert  takes  on  almost  the  sublimity  of  a  proph- 
ecy of  one  of  the  ancients.  Eminent  Americans 
have  been  quite  as  uninformed  about  our  Western 
growth  as  were  the  Englisli  experts.  In  1835  the 
Piev.  Dr.  Joel  Hawes,  of  Hartford,  had  a  call  to  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  in  Chicago.  "AVhen 
Dr.  Hawes  received  the  letter  of  invitation,  he 
took  it  to  Judge  Williams  of  his  church,  and  said: 
'  I  've  got  a  letter  from  some  place  out  West,  called 


88  A^■CIENT    CHICAGO. 

Chick'-a-go,  asking  me  to  come  there  and  preach. 
Can  you  tell  me  where  it  is  ? '  Having  learned 
that  it  was  in  a  great  swamp  hack  of  Lake  Mich- 
if'an,  he  thought  it  best  not  to  remove."  ^ 

Only  eight  years  before  Sir  llobert's  prophecy 
certain  shippers  of  hides  in  Chicago  had,  with 
much  daring  and  timidity,  made  a  venture  for  a 
market  by  exporting  forty-four  sacks  of  wheat. 
In  1880  that  "  Indian  place"  exported  by  land  and 
water  22,796,288  bushels  of  wheat,  and  2,802,737 
barrels  of  wheat  flour,  making  a  total  aggregate  for 
one  year  of  35,678,604  bushels  of  wheat. 

It  is  doubtless  without  precedent  in  the  annals 
of  the  world  that  a  city  of  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  has  sprung  up  so  suddenly  on  the 
can] ping-ground  of  a  conquered  and  retreating 
people.  In  Old  World  times  smouldering  cities 
have  been  left  in  the  track  of  invading  armies; 
but  in  the  iSTew  World  hamlets,  villages,  and  cities 
are  planted  by  the  invasion.  To  mark  off  to-day, 
amouCT  magnificent  blocks  of  merchantmen  and 
mansions  of  merchant  princes,  the  camping-ground 
of  those  Indians,  would  be  to  thousands  in  Chicago 
even  as  a  story  of  Sinbad  the  Sailor,  or  as  an  in- 
terlined and  dubious  chronicle  of  Alfred  the  Great 
or  of  one  of  the  early  Henrys.  No  wonder  that 
Gladstone  said  of  the  United  States  in  their  growth, 
"  America  is  passing  us  by  in  a  canter." 

^  Historical  Sermon  by  the  Eev.  John  H.  Barrows,  D.D. 
Fiftieth  Anniversary  First  Presbyterian  Cliurch  of  Chicago. 


ANCIENT   CHICAGO.  89 

Mention  has  hseii  made  of  the  first  teacher  in 
Chicago,  with  his  one  pupil  and  one  text-book. 
That  was  in  1810,  A  more  formal  yet  private 
school  followed  in  1816.  Immediately  followincr 
the  Black  Hawk  war,  in  1832,  another  school  was 
opened  in  a  building  twelve  feet  square,  once  a 
stable,  with  "old  store  boxes  for  benches  and 
desks."  In  the  first  quarter  Mr.  Watkins,  the 
proprietor,  had  twelve  pupils ;  "  only  four  of  them 
were  white ;  the  others  were  quarter,  half,  and 
three-quarter  Indians."  Billy  Caldwell,  the  Potta- 
watomie chief,  offered  to  pay  for  tuition,  books, 
and  clothing  of  so  many  Indian  children  in  the 
school  as  would  adopt  the  dress  of  civilization, 
but  not  one  accepted  his  offer.  The  dress  was 
the  obstacle.  About  this  time  a  Miss  Chappel 
left  her  school  at  Mackinaw  and  opened  one  in 
Chicago,  with  a  Miss  Mary  Barrows  as  assistant. 
At  last  accounts  Miss  Chappel,  as  Mrs.  Jeremiah 
Porter,  was  teaching  at  Port  Sill  in  the  Indian 
Territory. 

Two  years  afterward  Mr.  G.  T,  Sproat,  from 
Boston,  opened  an  English  and  Classical  school, 
and  a  recent  letter  from  one  of  his  assistants  gives 
a  good  idea  of  Chicago  at  that  time,  — 1834. 

"  I  used  to  go  across  without  regard  to  streets. 
It  was  not  uncommon  in  going  to  and  from  school 
to  see  prairie  wolves,  and  we  could  hear  them  howl 
any  time  in  tlie  day.  We  were  frequently  annoyed 
by  Indians,  but  the  great  difficulty  we  had  to  en- 


90  ANCIENT    CHICAOO. 

counter  Wcis  mnd.  No  person  now  can  have  a  just 
idea  of  what  Chicago  mud  used  to  be.  llubbers 
were  of  no  account.  I  purchased  a  pair  of  gen- 
tlemen's brogans  and  fastened  them  tight  about 
the  ankle,  but  would  still  go  over  them  in  mud 
and  water,  and  was  obliged  to  have  a  pair  of  men's 
boots  made." 

It  will  give  a  tolerable  idea  of  the  growth  of 
settlement  to-day  a  thousand  miles  or  two  beyond 
Chicago,  in  log-houses  and  mud-towns,  among  In- 
dians and  prairie  wolves,  if  we  notice  what  changes 
fifty  years  have  wrought  around  Fort  Dearborn  and 
Wolf  Point.  In  1882  the  Kinzie  boy  with  his 
spelling-book  from  the  tea-chest  would  have  found 
110,466  schoolmates,  as  those  of  legal  school  age 
in  Chicago.  Of  these  he  would  have  noticed  that 
32,038  were  attending  private  scliools,  as  was  he 
in  1810.  Master  Eobbie  Forsyth,  the  teacher, 
thirteen  years  old,  would  have  found  himself  in 
competition  with  1,019  public  scliool-teachers. 
When  Miss  Warren  drew  on  gentlemen's  boots 
and  went  wading  back  and  forth  across  the  lots, 
tlie  primitive  order  does  not  seem  to  have  reached 
Chicago, —  "Let  the  dry  land  appear;"  but  the 
work  of  creation  has  since  been  completed  there, 
and  Chicago  has  ceased  to  be  amphibian. 

In  setting  forth  Ancient  Chicago,  we  made  its 
first  human  haljitation  our  resting-place  and  our 
study ;  and  now,  in  conclusion,  let  us  go  back  to 
its  threshold  to  take  farewell. 


ANCIENT    CHICAGO.  91 

It  is  the  first  liouse  built  in  Chicago,  and  by 
De  Saible,  a  Domingoau,  in  1770.  IMonarch  of  all 
he  surveys  from  its  low  doorway,  and  solitary  for 
seventeen  years,  he  sells  out  to  Le  Mai,  who  keeps 
it  open  to  Indians  and  furs  for  eight  years,  when 
John  Kinzie  buys  him  out  in  1804,  —  the  first 
x\merican  in  the  town,  though  born  in  Quebec. 
Kinzie  keeps  it  as  a  place  for  Indian  barter  till 
tlie  massacre  of  1812.  Then  for  four  years  it 
stands  open  and  vacant  for  the  winds  and  the 
wild  animals,  till  the  owner  cautiously  and  sadly 
returns.  All  about  and  in  sight  from  its  forsaken 
doorway  are  the  ghastly  remains  of  the  massacre. 
Here  the  first  wliite  child  is  born  in  the  city  of  to- 
day, and  in  1823  becomes,  under  the  same  roof,  the 
first  bride.  Of  all  the  joyous  weddings  in  that  now 
populous  city,  the  first  was  within  those  log  walls  ; 
and  the  same  year  its  occupant,  as  probably  the 
first  justice  of  the  county,  held  the  first  court  in 
Chicago  under  its  roof.  Four  years  later  it  was 
vacated  by  Justice  Kinzie,  who  moved  across  the 
river  to  a  little  house  under  tlie  walls  of  the  Fort, 
where  he  died  in  1828.  In  1831  it  was  occupied 
by  Bailey,  as  the  first  postmaster  in  that  prophetic 
town ;  probably  thus  early  on  its  floor  the  basket 
of  mail  matter  was  emptied,  and  later  its  walls 
were  decorated  with  those  boot  letter-boxes  by  his 
successor  and  son-in-law,  Hogan.  It  was  easy  of 
access,  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  from  the  lake, 
on  the  north  bank  of  the  river  and  opposite  the 


92  ANCIENT    GAICAGO. 

Fort,  with  a  canoe  or  skiff  or  pirogue  ferry  between, 
free  to  any  one  wlio  could  handle  paddle  or  oar,  and 
half  a  mile  or  so  down  the  river  from  Wolf  Point. 
The  bridges  and  draws,  innumerable  and  intoler- 
able, were  yet  to  come.  After  1832,  says  Andreas, 
"  there  is  no  record  of  its  being  inhal)ited.  Its 
decaying  logs  were  used  by  the  Indians  and  emi- 
grants for  fuel,  and  the  drifting  sands  of  Lake 
Michigan  were  piled  over  its  remains.  No  one 
knows  when  it  finally  disappeared," 


THE   "  GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT."  93 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE   "  GREAT   AMERICAN   DESERT." 

"  T  INN  was  granted  6  miles  into  the  countrey, 
J^ — J  and  Mr.  Hauthorne  and  Lieft.  Davenport 
to  view  and  informe  how  the  land  Ijeth  —  whether 
it  may  bee  fit  for  another  plantation  or  no."  So 
ran  the  records  of  the  colony  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  for  the  13th  of  March,  1638-9.  From  that 
day  to  this,  official  and  private  inquiry  has 
travelled  westward  from  the  colonial  east  "  to 
view  and  informe."  As  to  this  ancient  case,  in- 
viting land  was  found,  and  colonial  Lynn  ex- 
tended herself  finally  over  what  now  embraces  six 
townships.  The  successors  of  Hawthorne  and 
Davenport  have  continued  explorations  westward 
till  settlers  have  gone  quite  to  the  Pacific,  gener- 
ally finding  land  "  fit  for  another  plantation."  Of 
course  much  of  this  emigrant  movement  into  dense 
forests  and  over  mountain  ranges  and  through 
vast  howling  wilderness  has  been  undertaken  with 
hesitation,  and  carried  on  amid  fear  and  great  pri- 
vations and  struggles. 

But  nothing  so  crept  over  the  youthful  mind  in 
the  schoolroom  or  confronted  daring  pioneers  on 


94  TlIK   "  GltKAT   AMERICAN    DESERT." 

tlie  westward  growtli  of  the  nation,  as  the  "  Great 
American  Desert."  It  took  position  in  North 
America  much  as  the  Saliara  did  in  Africa,  and 
the  two  claimed  about  equal  space  and  importance 
on  our  cliildhood  maps.  This  traditional  chimera 
started  very  naturally  in  the  ignorance  of  Ameri- 
can geography  which  prevailed  as  to  the  interior 
of  our  continent  in  colonial  times.  When  Jona- 
than Carver,  between  the  old  French  war  and  the 
Eevolution,  was  looking  about  the  falls  of  St.  An- 
thony and  westward  for  a  ship  channel  through 
to  the  Pacific,  and  the  peace  commission  of  1783 
were  in  a  mistake  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
miles  in  locating  the  head  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
a  Mexican  historian  was  bordering  our  northwest 
coast  on  Tartary,  the  interior  might  well  be 
unknown. 

We  were  most  unfortunate  in  some  of  our  first 
teachers  in  interior  geography  far  back  in  colonial 
times.  True,  Popple's  map,  engraved  in  1733, 
shows  a  grassy,  wooded,  and  watered  country  be- 
yond the  Mississippi  and  the  Missouri.  But  a 
French  map,  "  Par  ordore  de  M.  le  Due  de 
Choiseul,  etc.,  1764,"  says  of  the  lands  south  and 
west  of  St.  Louis,  "  ces  centres  sont  pen  connues," 
and  if  unknown,  then  Popple's  drawings  must  have 
been  pure  fancy.  This  country  lay  south  of  tlie 
Missouri  and  extended  across  Kansas  to  the  Eed 
Eiver.  The  first  maps  in  accordance  with  the 
treaty  of  17''^3  locate  "great  meadows"  on  both 


THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  95 

sides  of  the  Missouri.  In  his  "  Universal  Geog- 
raphy" of  1793,  Jedidiah  Morse  gives  the  most 
advanced  knowledge  of  our  interior  at  that  date, ' 
and  a  few  facts  will  indicate  the  extent  and  accu- 
racy of  it.  "  From  the  best  accounts  tliat  can  be 
obtained  from  the  Indians,"  he  says,  "  we  learn 
that  the  four  most  capital  rivers  of  the  continent 
of  North  America,  namely,  the  St.  Lawrence,  the 
Mississii)pi,  the  River  Bourbon  [Missouri],  and 
the  Oregon,  or  River  of  tlie  West,  have  their 
sources  in  the  same  neighborhood."  ^  It  is  now 
interesting  to  see,  on  this  old  map,  the  Oregon,  or 
River  of  the  West,  starting  in  what  we  call  Devil's 
Lake,  in  northeastern  Dakota,  and  emptying  into 
the  Bay  of  San  Erancisco.  St.  Louis  "  is  four  or 
five  miles  north  by  west  of  Cahokia,  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Mississippi."  To-day  the  city  of  four 
hundred  thousand  is  gazetted  differently.  The 
anxieties  of  that  day,  clustering  around  that  far- 
ofif  and  foreign  land,  are  thus  expressed :  "  It  has 
been  supposed  that  all  settlers  who  go  beyond 
the  Mississippi  will  be  forever  lost  to  the  United 
States."  ^  Colonel  Morgan,  of  New  Jersey,  was 
then  founding  a  settlement  to  l)e  called  New 
j\Ladrid,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Spanish  king, 
on  the  west  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  about  fifty 
miles  below  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio.  When  ne- 
gotiations were  proposed  for  the  purchase  of  the 
Louisiana  Territory,  oidy  a  small  tract  was  thought 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  158.  2  Yoi_  j.  p    169. 


96  THE    "GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT." 

of,  enough  to  give  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. In  a  letter  to  M.  Dupont  of  Feb.  1, 
1803,  Jefferson  writes:  "The  country  which  we 
wish  to  purchase  is  a  barren  sand,  six  hundred 
miles  from  east  to  west,  and  from  thirty  to  forty 
and  fifty  miles  from  north  to  south." 

After  our  acquisition  of  the  Louisiana  in  1803, 
Lewis  and  Clark  went  across  it  to  the  Pacihc  to 
explore  it,  and  long  before  their  return,  nothing 
liaving  been  heard  from  them,  they  were  presumed 
to  have  perished  in  that  unexplored  region.  Tliis 
expedition  of  Lewis  and  Clark  was  organized  be- 
fore the  purchase  of  Louisiana  and  in  the  interests 
of  the  Indian  trade.  In  1788  John  Ledyard,  who 
had  been  with  Cook  on  the  northwest  coast,  met  Mr. 
Jefferson  in  Paris,  and  proposed  the  organization 
of  a  fur  company  for  those  coasts.  Failing  to  en- 
list Jefferson,  he  started  alone  for  that  region  by 
tlie  way  of  Eussia,  was  arrested,  imprisoned,  re- 
leased, and  in  1789  died  at  Cairo,  Egypt.  In 
1792  Jefferson  proposed  to  the  American  Philo- 
sophical Society  of  Philadelphia  to  send  Captain 
Lewis,  with  companions,  across  to  the  Pacific  for 
scientific  and  general  exploring  purposes.  The 
plan  failed  on  the  eve  of  starting  by  the  with- 
drawal of  Michaux,  tlie  botanist,  by  his  govern- 
ment, the  French.  In  1803  Congress  attempted 
to  extend  the  Indian  trade  into  the  wild  northwest, 
and  so  organized  the  expedition  that  has  become 
historic  as  that  of  Lewis  and  Clark.     The  instruc- 


THE   "GKEAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  97 

tions  for  it  were  draughted  in  April,  1803.  On 
the  last  day  of  the  same  month  Louisiana  Mas 
ceded  to  the  United  States ;  and  so  the  expedition 
which  consumed  two  years* four  months  and  nine 
days  in  the  round  trip  from  and  to  St.  Louis,  re- 
sulted in  an  exploration  of  our  own  territory. 

Under  these  shadows  of  ignorance,  and  beyond 
the  western  horizon,  the  Great  American  Desert 
took  its  place  and  name.  Lieutenant  Zebulon 
M.  Pike  first  gave  outline  and  prominence  to  this 
unfortunate  myth  in  American  geography  and  his- 
tory. He  commanded  two  Government  explora- 
tions of  the  country,  examining  the  sources  of 
the  Mississippi,  Missouri,  Platte,  and  Arkansas,  in 
1805-1807.  In  his  report  to  the  war  office,  pub- 
lished soon  after,  he  sketches  the  vast  regions 
explored  as  repulsive  to  all  immigrants  and  im- 
possible for  settlements,  and  then  says  :  — 

"  From  these  immense  prairies  may  be  derived 
one  great  advantage  to  the  United  States ;  namely, 
the  restriction  of  our  population  to  some  certain 
limits,  and  thereby  a  continuation  of  the  union.  Our 
citizens  being  so  prone  to  rambling  and  extending 
themselves  on  the  frontier,  will,  through  necessity, 
be  constrained  to  limit  their  extent  to  the  west  to 
the  borders  of  the  Missouri  and  Mississippi,  while 
they  leave  the  prairies,  incapable  of  cultivation,  to 
the  wandering  and  uncivilized  Aborigines  of  the 
country.  It  appears  to  me  to  be  only  possible  to 
7 


98  TIIK    "CillEAT   AMEllICAN    DESERT." 

introduce  a  limited  population  to  the  banks  of  the 
Kansas,  Platte,  and  Arkansas."  ^ 

From  this  Government  document  the  delusion 
was  reproduced  in  manuals  of  geography,  and 
began  to  pervade  literature  at  home  and  abroad. 
The  real  biography  of  Major  Pike  is  yet  waiting 
for  the  romantic  pen  of  personal  and  thrilling 
narrative.  A  son  of  the  American  army,  born  in 
the  heat  of  the  Eevolution,  early  a  lieutenant 
under  his  father  on  the  frontier,  the  first  to  ex- 
plore officially  those  head-waters  ;  captured  over 
the  unknown  line  and  taken  a  prisoner  to  Santa 
Fe  and  old  Mexico,  after  leaving  his  name  on  one 
of  our  noblest  mountain  peaks  ;  leading  as  briga- 
dier-general in  the  attack  on  York,  now  Toronto, 
in  1813  ;  falling  in  the  assault  which  proved  vic- 
torious, and  making  a  sign  in  his  dying  moments 
to  have  the  captured  British  flag  placed  under  his 
head,  —  he  ended  a  most  adventurous  and  heroic 
life. 

In  1810-11  the  land  party  of  the  Astoria  enter- 
prise, under  Wilson  P.  Hunt,  and  outlined  by  the 
graphic  pen  of  Irving,  gave  most  unjust  coloring 
to  the  horrors  of  this  imagined  desert;  for  the 
tragic  fate  of  that  expedition  was  attributed,  in 
the  popular  mind,  to  the  inhospitable  qualities  of 
an  American  Sahara;  and  to  this  day  unread 
speakers  and  writers  are  damaging  the  West  for 

^  Expeditions,  etc.,  of  Lieut.  Z.  M.  Pike,  Appendix  II. 


THE   "GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT."  99 

tlie  mistake  and  disasters  which  occurred  to  that 
party  through  ignorance  of  the  country  and  in  the 
mountains  far  beyond  the  desert,  so  called. 

In  the  year  1819-20,  j\Iajor  Stephen  H.  Long, 
of  the  army,  by  order  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  Sec- 
retary of  War,  went  out  to  "  explore  the  Missouri 
and  its  principal  branches,  and  then  in  succes- 
sion Red  Eiver,  Arkansas,  and  the  Mississippi 
above  the  mouth  of  the  Missouri."  The  expedi- 
tion took  winter  quarters  near  Council  Bluffs,  and 
then  swept  the  eastern  base  and  slopes  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  along  and  among  the  heads  and 
tributaries  of  the  Missouri  and  its  lower  valleys. 

A  few  extracts  from  the  official  report  of  Major 
Long  will  show  how  the  "desert"  grew  in  area 
and  in  terror  before  the  American  people,  and 
how  good  material  it  furnished  to  Europeans, 
who  wished  to  disparage  the  United  States  and 
discourage  emigration,  and  prepare  the  way  to 
capture  Oregon.  Of  the  country  between  the 
Mississippi  and  Missouri  it  is  reported  that  "  the 
scarcity  of  timber,  mill-seats,  and  springs  of  water 
—  defects  that  are  almost  uniformly  prevalent  — 
must  for  a  long  time  prove  serious  impediments  in 
the  way  of  settling  the  country.  Large  tracts  are 
often  to  be  met  with,  exhibiting  scarcely  a  trace 
of  vegetation."  ^  The  Great  American  Desert 
manifests  itself  thus  authoritatively  in  an  official 
document   in   this  "  Report  of  a    United    States 

1  Long's  Expedition,  riiila.  Eel.  1S23,  vol.  ii.  pp.  341,  352. 


100  THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT." 

Exploring-  Expedition " :  "  From  the  minute  ac- 
count given  in  the  narrative  of  the  expedition  of 
the  particular  features  of  this  region,  it  will  be 
perceived  to  bear  a  manifest  resemblance  to  the 
deserts  of  Siberia."  ^ 

Of  the  mountainous  country  beyond,  Major 
Long  says  :  "  It  is  a  region  destined  by  the  bar- 
renness of  its  soil,  the  inhospitable  character  of 
its  climate,  and  by  other  physical  disadvantages, 
to  be  the  abode  of  perpetual  desolation."  ^ 

If  some  early  explorer  from  the  Jamestown  or 
Plymouth  colony  had  said  this  of  large  sections 
to  the  westward,  we  could  now  see  how  their 
reports  would  have  stayed  the  territorial  growth 
of  the  colonies.  Greenhow,  in  his  "  History  of 
Oregon,"  and  as  late  as  1845,  sets  thus  in  summary 
the  teachings  of  "  Long's  Narrative  "  :  "  The  whole 
division  of  North  America,  drained  by  the  Mis- 
souri and  the  Arkansas  and  their  tributaries,  be- 
tween the  meridian  of  the  mouth  of  the  Platte 
and  the  Eocky  Mountains,  is  almost  entirely  unfit 
for  cultivation,  and  therefore  uninhabitable  by  a 
people  depending  upon  agriculture  for  their  sub- 
sistence. .  .  .  These  circumstances,  as  they  be- 
came known  through  the  United  States,  rendered 
the  people  and  their  representatives  in  the  Fed- 
eral legislature  more  and  more  indifferent  with 
regard  to  the  territories  on  the  northwestern  side 

1  Long's  Expedition,  vol.  ii.  p.  389. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  401. 


THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  lUl 

of  the  continent.  It  became  always  difficult, 
and  generally  impossible,  to  engage  the  attention 
of  Congress  to  any  matters  connected  with  those 
countries."  ^ 

It  was  quite  in  the  official  line,  and  inevitable, 
that  Pike's  and  Long's  Government  explorations 
and  reports  should  furnish  the  staple  for  our  his- 
tories and  school  geographies  in  their  descriptions 
of  that  border  land.  Government  documents,  then 
as  now,  were  taken  as  first  authority ;  wliile  expe- 
rience has  been  teaching  us  to  quote  them  cau- 
tiously where  personal  observation  and  judgment 
alone  have  furnished  the  data. 

In  1824  Woodbridge  and  Willard  published 
their  "  Geography  for  Schools,"  and  they  thus 
spoke  to  the  generation  of  pupils  whom  a  better 
information  is  now  correcting.  Eei'erring  to  the 
great  delta  between  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri, 
they  say :  "  The  soil  of  this  region  is  probably 
equal,  if  not  superior,  to  that  of  any  other  tract 
of  upland  in  the  United  States ;  but  the  scarcity 
of  timber,  mill-seats,  and  springs  must  for  a  long 
time  impede  its  settlement."  ^ 

They  cover  a  belt  south  of  the  Missouri,  and 
extending  well  toward  Red  Eiver,  with  the  re- 
mark, "  The  great  swamp,  two  hundred  miles  in 
length  and  from  five  to  thirty  in  width."  It  is 
now  as  difficult  to  find  this  "swamp"  as  to  find 

^  History  of  Oregon  and  California,  p.  323. 

2  Woodbridge  and  Willard's  Geogvapliy,  1824,  p.  77. 


102  THE    "GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT." 

tlic  "  desert "  of  Pike  and   Long.      Our  authors 
proceed  to  say  :  — 

"From  longitude  9G°,  or  the  meridian  of 
Council  Bluffs,  to  the  Chippewan  mountains  is 
a  desert  region  of  four  hundred  miles  in  leufjth 
and  breadth,  or  about  sixteen  thousand  square 
miles  in  extent.  .  .  .  On  approaching  within  one 
hundred  miles  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  their 
snow-capped  summits  became  visible.  Here  the 
hills  become  more  frequent,  and  elevated  rocks 
more  abundant,  and  the  soil  more  sterile,  until 
we  reach  the  abrupt  chain  of  peaks  which 
divide  it  from  the  western  declivities  of  North 
America.  Not  a  thousandth  part  can  be  said  to 
have  any  timber  growth,  and  the  surface  is  gen- 
erally naked.  .  .  .  The  predominant  soil  of  this 
region  is  a  sterile  sand,  and  large  tracts  are  often 
to  be  met  with  which  exhibit  scarcely  a  trace 
of  vegetation.  .  .  .  The  salts  and  magnesia  min- 
gled with  the  soil  are  often  so  abundant  as  to 
destroy  vegetation.  The  waters  are,  to  a  great 
extent,  impure,  and  frequently  too  brackish  for 
use.  .  .  .  The  valley  of  the  Canadian  Eiver  is 
encrusted  to  a  great  extent  with  salt  nearly  pure, 
resembling  ice  or  snow  in  its  appearance.  The 
waters  of  this  river  are  so  impregnated  with  salt 
as  to  be  unfit  for  use,  and  this  is  the  case  with 
other  tributaries  of  the  Arkansas  and  of  the  Red 
River.  ,  .  .  Agreeably  to  the  best  intelligence  we 


THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  103 

Imve,  the  country,  both  northward  and  southward 
of  that  described,  commencing  near  the  sources  of 
the  Sahine  and  Colorado,  and  extending  to  the 
northern  boundary  of  the  United  States,  is  through- 
out of  a  similar  character."  ^ 

Of  the  northwest  territory  the  text-book  taught 
that  "  the  northern  parts  are  sterile  ;  "  and  of  the 
Missouri  territory,  that  is,  all  nortli  and  west  of 
the  State  of  Missouri,  in  1824,  "  there  is  little 
probability  that  it  can  ever  become  the  residence 
of  an  agricultural  nation ; "  and  of  the  Arkansas 
territory,  that  is,  all  southwest  of  Missouri  to  the 
Spanish  line,  that  "  the  western  portions  are  dry 
and  sterile."^ 

Olney's  Geography,  in  the  change  of  school 
l)ooks,  contained  the  same  teachings.  Of  the 
northwest  territory  he  but  copies  his  predecessors 
in  saying,  "  The- northern  part  is  hilly  and  moun- 
tainous, with  a  light,  barren  soil."  ^  The  same 
author  estimates  the  Missouri  territory  of  that 
day  as  containing  about  eight  hundred  thousand 
square  miles,  extending  from  the  Mississippi  to 
the  Missouri,  and  says  :  "  The  soil  in  the  western 
parts  and  on  the  banks  of  the  rivers  is  extremely 
rich  and  fertile ;  the  remainder  is  generally  a  vast, 

1  Woodbridge  and  Willard's  Geography,  pp.  77-79. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  2G6,  Goodrich's  Geography  of  1826  speaks  of  "the 
Great  American  Desert." 

3  Olney's  Geography,  1831,  p.  114. 


104  THE    "  GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT." 

elevated,  and  l)aiTen  waste,  destitute  of  tiiuLer 
and  vegetation."  ^ 

In  his  edition  of  1839,  Smith  makes  the  Great 
American  Desert  extend  from  the  lied  River  of 
Texas  and  the  Indian  Territory  and  Arkansas  to 
the  North  Platte. 

After  the  Asliburton-Webster  treaty  of  1842 
had  been  ratified,  the  Oregon  question  assumed  a 
livelier  interest  in  Congress,  and  McDuffie,  speak- 
ing of  the  region  in  dispute,  said  :  "  Why,  as  I 
understand  it,  seven  hundred  miles  this  side  of 
the  Eocky  Mountains  it  is  uninhabitable,  where 
rain  scarcely  ever  falls ;  a  barren,  sandy  soil." 
Somewhat  later  another  eminent  statesman,  yet 
living,  spoke  of  "  a  wagon  road  eighteen  hundred 
miles  in  length,  tlirough  an  arid  and  mountainous 
region,"  to  the  territory  in  dispute. 

Of  course  these  gloomy  accounts  of  uninhal)ita- 
ble  and  impassable  wastes  between  the  United 
States  and  coveted  Oregon  soon  found  their  way 
into  English  periodicals,  to  aid  in  making  the 
coming  arguments  against  American  possession 
over  the  mountains.  So  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  " 
for  1843  says  of  the  country  west  of  the  Missouri 
and  Arkansas :  — 

"  There  lies  the  desert,  .  .  .  except  in  a  few 
spots  on  the  border  of  the  rivers,  incapable,  proba- 
bly forever,  of  fixed  settlements.     This  is  the  great 

1  Olney's  Geography,  p.  117. 


THE   "  GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT."  105 

prairie  wildern(3ss,  wliicli  lias  a  general  breadth  of 
six  hundred  or  seven  hunch-ed  miles,  and  extends 
from  south  to  north  .  .  .  nearly  fourteen  hundred 
miles,  ...  so  complete  in  the  character  of  aridity 
that  the  great  rivers  —  the  Platte,  Arkansas,  and 
Rio  Grande  —  after  many  hundred  miles  of  course 
through  the  mountains,  dry  up  altogether  on  the 
plains  in  summer,  like  the  streams  of  Australia, 
leaving  only  standing  pools  of  water  between  wide 
sand-bars.  .  .  .  Oregon  will  never  be  colonized 
overland  from  the  Eastern  States.  .  .  .  With  these 
internal  obstacles  between,  we  cannot  but  imagine 
that  the  world  must  assume  a  new  face  before 
the  American  wagons  make  plain  the  road  to  the 
Columbia  as  they  have  to  the  Ohio." 

Of  course  that  unfortunate  passage  is  quoted 
by  the  "  Eeview  "  from  Irving,  in  which  the  imagi- 
nation was  vigorous  after  knowledge  failed :  — 

"  An  immense  tract  stretching  north  and  south 
for  hundreds  of  miles  along  the  foot  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  drained  by  the  tributary  streams 
of  the  jMissouri  and  the  Mississippi.  Tiiis  re- 
gion, which  resembles  one  of  the  immeasurable 
steppes  of  Asia,  has  not  inaptly  been  termed  '  the 
Great  American  Desert.'  ...  It  is  a  land  where 
no  man  permanently  abides,  for  in  certain  seasons 
of  the  year  there  is  no  food  either  for  the  hunter 
or  his  steed.  The  herbage  is  parched  and  with- 
ered ;  the  brooks  and  streams  are  dried  up ;  the 


106  Tllii:    "OIIKAT    AMERICAN    DESERT." 

buffiilo,  the  elk,  and  tlie  door  have  wandered  to 
distant  parts,  keeping  within  tlie  range  of  expiring 
verdure,  and  leaving  behind  them  a  vast  uninhab- 
ited solitude,  seamed  by  ravines,  the  former  beds 
of  torrents,  but  now  serving  only  to  tantalize  and 
increase  tlie  tliirst  cjf  the  traveller.  .  ,  .  Such  is 
the  nature  of  this  immense  wilderness  of  the  far 
West,  which  apparently  defies  cultivation,  and  the 
habitation  of  civilized  life.  ...  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  a  great  part  of  it  will  form  a  lawless  interval 
between  the  abodes  of  civilized  man,  like  the 
wastes  of  the  ocean  or  the  deserts  of  Arabia."  ^ 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  this  misappre- 
hension of  a  vast  region,  much  of  it  magnificent 
in  agriculture  to-day,  should  traverse  the  round 
world  on  the  great  fame  of  a  pen  which  is  hardly 
surpassed  in  pure  and  elegantly  fascinating  Eng- 
lish. He  had  no  personal  knowledge  of  the  "  des- 
ert" over  which  he  has  thrown  this  ghastly  spell. 
His  "  Tour  on  the  Prairies,"  published  the  year 
before,  and  the  record  of  his  own  experiences, 
showed  him  no  such  forlorn  region.  In  early 
days  he  had  revelled  in  the  trapper,  hunter,  and 
trader  stories  of  the  headquarters  of  the  North- 
west Fur  Company  at  Montreal,  at  an  age,  he 
owns,  "  when  imagination  lends  its  color  to  every- 
thing." The  men  who  gave  him  positive  informa- 
tion were  but  poor  judges  at  the  best  of  a  region 

1  Astoria,  chap.  x\ii.     Tliis  was  publisheil  in  1836. 


THE    "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  107 

for  human  homes ;  and  so  far  as  they  saw  openings 
inviting  to  immigration,  it  was  their  interest  and 
policy  to  conceal  the  fiicts  and  keep  the  country 
unoccupied  as  a  game  preserve,  as  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company  covered  and  misrepresented  their 
game-field,  to  the  great  damage  of  the  Englisli 
Crown.  The  journals,  letters,  and  business  books 
of  the  fur  trade  which  Astor  put  into  his  hands 
for  this  volume,  the  examining  of  which  was 
spared  him  by  his  nephew,  he  confesses  "were 
often  meagre  in  their  details,  furnisliing  hints  to 
provoke  rather  than  narratives  to  satisfy  inquiry."  ^ 
Irving  makes  an  unconscious  confession  as  to  the 
quality  of  his  material  when  he  speaks  of  "  the 
stories  of  these  Sinbads  of  the  wilderness  "  that 
his  ears  took  in  so  ardently  in  those  genial  head- 
quarters at  Montreal.^  A  passage  in  his  preface  to 
"  The  Tales  of  a  Traveller  "  might  properly  precede 
all  that  he  says  on  the  Great  American  Desert : 

"  I  have  read  somewhat,  heard  and  seen  more, 
and  dreamt  more  than  all.  My  brain  is  filled, 
therefore,  with  all  kinds  of  odds  and    ends.     In 

1  The  writer,  after  a  residence  anil  trial  of  years  in  St.  Louis, 
then  the  centre  of  tlie  American  fur  trade,  and  in  constant  inter- 
course with  Indian  traders  anil  trappers  and  wandering  border 
men,  can  .sympathize  with  Irving  in  this  failure. 

2  He  supplemented  his  deficiency  with  the  journals  of  travel- 
lers, as  Messrs.  Lewis  and  Clark,  Long,  Bradbury,  Brecken- 
ridge,  Franchere,  and  Eoss  Cox.  Of  one  of  them,  as  authority. 
Major  Long,  we  have  already  spoken. 


108  THE   "GKEAT   AMERICAN    DESERT." 

travelling,  these  heterogeneous  matters  have  be- 
come shaken  up  in  my  mind,  as  the  articles  are 
apt  to  be  in  an  ill-packed  travelling-trunk ;  so 
that  when  I  attempt  to  draw  forth  a  fact,  I  cannot 
determine  whether  I  have  heard,  read,  or  dreamt 
it,  and  I  am  always  at  a  loss  to  know  how  much 
to  believe  of  my  own  stories." 

The  "  Westminster  Keview"  has  the  same  senti- 
ment, borrowing  from  Pike,  Long,  Irving,  and  other 
misled  American  authors :  "  From  the  Valley  of 
the  Mississippi  to  the  Eocky  Mountains,  the 
United  States  territory  consists  of  an  arid  tract 
extending  south  nearly  to  Texas,  which  has  been 
called  the  Great  American  Desert.  " 

Edward  I.  Wallace,  an  English  writer  of  1846, 
says  :  "  The  caravan  of  emigrants  who  undertake 
the  passage  [of  the  desert  and  the  mountains]  take 
provisions  for  six  months,  and  many  of  them  die 
on  the  way." 

Governor  Simpson,  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Com- 
pany, who  published  his  journey  through  the 
northwest  in  1847,  has  this  passage:  "From  the 
inhabited  parts  of  the  United  States,  it  [Oregon] 
is  separated  by  deserts  of  rock  and  sand  on  either 
side  of  the  dividing  ridge  of  mountains,  —  deserts 
with  whose  horrors  every  reader  of  Washington 
Irving's  '  Astoria  '  is  familiar." 

The  overland  expedition  of  Wilson  P.  Hunt 
was  not  only  a  calamity  to  John  Jacob  Astor,  but 


THE    "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  109 

to  American  geography  and  the  general  growth  of 
the  United  States  toward  the  Pacific. 

In  his  "  Quarto  Geography,"  1849,  Ohiey  has 
a  map  of  the  United  States  west  of  the  Indian 
Territory,  Missouri,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota.  There 
is  a  curving  zone  extending  back  in  width  to  the 
Eocky  Mountains,  and  from  northern  Texas  to 
the  British  line,  and  lettered  "  Great  American 
Desert,"  with  this  description  covering  it :  "  This 
desert  is  traversed  by  numerous  herds  of  buffaloes 
and  wild  horses,  and  inhabited  by  roving  tribes  of 
Indians."  The  "  Modern  Atlas  "  of  W.  C.  Wood- 
bridge,  published  twenty  years  before,  had  the 
same  belt  with  the  same  title,  only  that  it  there 
extended  south  through  Texas  to  the  Eio  Grande. 
The  "  Quarto  School  Geography "  of  Eoswell  C. 
Smith,  1852,  extends  Nebraska  back  through  Wy- 
oming to  the  mountains,  and  says  of  the  whole  of 
it,  "  Little  better  than  a  desert."  While  the 
region  north  of  Nebraska  and  extending  west  to 
the  mountains,  substantially  Dakota,  "  resembles 
Nebraska  in  soil."  Our  school  geographies,  down 
to  very  late  years,  have  taught  the  children  the 
same  mistakes  about  an  uninhabitable  region  be- 
yond the  Mississippi  and  the  Missouri. 

It  has  already  been  shown  that  English  interests 
in  Oregon,  while  its  title  and  occupation  were  yet 
open  questions,  studiously  added  area  and  horrors 
to  the  "  desert "  said  to  intervene  between  the 
States  and  that  Territory.     Twenty-five  years  later 


110  THE    "GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT." 

tlie  English  policy  to  settle  their  country  hot  ween 
the  Lake  Superior  region  and  the  I'acific  led 
English  writers  to  perpetuate  and  pro[)agate  the 
dying  delusion  ol"  a  Greiit  American  Desert.  In 
the  "  Westminster  lieview"  for  July,  18G7,  the 
author  makes  a  damaging  attack  on  tlie  Hudson 
Bay  Company  for  keeping  a  tract  of  country 
"  nearly  as  large  as  the  whole  United  States  and 
more  than  half  the  size  of  Europe  as  a  vast  pre- 
serve for  the  fur-bearing  animals."  In  order  to  do 
this,  the  writer  says  that  "  the  company  has  stu- 
diously cultivated  the  opinion  that  all  Eupert's 
Land  [the  Hudson  Bay  Basin]  is  a  howling  wil- 
derness, a  desert,  where  half-starved  animals  and 
men  wage  war  for  life  on  each  other,  and  that 
nothing  induces  settlement." 

Now,  after  the  exclusive  rights  of  that  huge 
monopoly  had  reverted  to  the  Crown,  and  the 
English  Government  discovered  that  its  eminent 
interest  lay  in  opening  up  this  magnificent  country 
between  Ontario  and  the  Pacific  to  their  own  emi- 
grants and  trade,  the  writer  proceeds  to  adopt  the 
policy  that  he  has  reprobated  in  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company.  Speaking  of  the  country  south  of 
the  parallel  of  forty-nine,  which  divides  the  two 
countries,  the  "  Eeview  "  says  :  — 

"  From  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi  to  the 
Eocky  Mountains  the  United  States  territory  con- 
sists of  an  arid  tract  extending  south  nearly  to 


THE    "GKEAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  Ill 

Texas,  which  has  bocii  called  the  Great  American 
Desert.  This  sterile  region,  covering  such  au  ini- 
niense  area,  contains  but  a  lew  thousand  miles 
of  fertile  land.  .  .  .  North  of  this  is  the  zone  of 
mixed  country  named  the  Fertile  Belt,  which  is 
drained  by  the  Red,  Assiniboine,  and  Saskatchewan, 
and  constitutes  the  basin  of  Lake  Winnipeg.  It 
consists  of  an  undulatiug,  park-like  country,  where 
prairies  covered  with  luxuriant  grasses  are  mingled 
with  stretches  of  woodland,  and  well  watered  by 
numerous  lakes  and  streams.  .  .  .  Nature,  march- 
ing from  east  to  west,  showered  her  bounties  on 
the  laud  of  the  United  States  until  she  reached  the 
Mississippi,  but  there  she  turned  aside  and  went 
northward  to  favor  British  territory." 

It  is  an  interesting  discovery  in  physical  geog- 
raphy, that  in  the  six  days  of  creation,  or  somewhere 
in  the  glacial  eras,  Nature  was  so  predetermined 
and  took  so  sharp  a  turn  north,  after  passing  the 
Mississippi,  just  "to  favor  British  territory "  and 
advertise  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railroad.  Yet  ac- 
cording to  present  appearances  Iowa  and  Minne- 
sota and  Dakota  were  not  totally  disinherited  in 
the  will  and  legacies  of  Nature.  Indeed,  the 
author  elsewhere,  by  a  kind  of  human  codicil, 
admits  the  two  former  and  Kansas  to  "  this  beau- 
tiful region." 

lieturning  to  the  English  side  of  the  line,  the 
British  autlior  continues :  "  It  appears  that  there 


112  THE    "GUEAT   AMEUICAN    DESERT." 

are  from  sixty  tliousaiid  to  one  hundred  thousand 
square  miles  lying  directly  between  the  two  colo- 
nies and  British  Columbia,  which  possess  every 
possible  qualification  for  agricultural  purposes." 

Concerning  which  belt  the  "  lleview "  quotes 
Lord  Selkirk  as  saying :  "  If  these  regions  were 
occupied  by  an  industrious  population,  they  might 
afford  ample  means  of  subsistence  to  more  than 
thirty  millions  of  British  subjects." 

No  doubt  these  are  fair  statements  of  the  quali- 
ties, areas,  and  possibilities  of  the  English  pos- 
sessions in  question,  and  the  English  Government 
did  not  recover  itself  any  too  soon  from  a  grasp- 
ing and  uncivilizing  monopoly.  Referring  to  the 
Northern  Pacific  Eailroad,  while  writing  for  the 
Canadian  Pacific,  the  "Westminster"  says:  "A 
road  has  been  carried,  not  through  a  beautiful 
country  like  the  Fertile  Belt  [of  the  Canadian 
Pacific],  but  through  the  barren  wilderness  of  the 
American  Desert,  inhabited  by  fierce  and  hostile 
Indians.  ...  As  the  neighboring  State  of  Minne- 
sota fills  up,  American  emigrants  will  throng  more 
and  more  over  the  boundary  into  the  Fertile  Belt. 
They  cannot  spread  westward  within  the  limits  of 
the  United  States,  for  the  Great  American  Desert 
forbids  it." 

It  does  not  seem  needful  to  dwell  further  on  the 
earlier  outlines  and  description  of  this  famous  and 
fabled  region,  as  Government  reports,  text-books, 
and  periodicals  have  presented  it.     The  area  of  it 


THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  113 

began  to  contract  on  the  eastern  border  when  the 
Americans  began,  about  1843,  to  study  earnestly 
the  Oregon  question,  and  since  that  date  it  has 
shown  a  steady  diminution  on  the  maps  and  in 
books.  Official  reports  of  State  and  Territorial 
surveys,  text-books,  and  magazines  have  produced 
immense  shrinkage  in  "arid  tracts,"  "great  swamps," 
"  sterile  sand,"  "  steppes  of  Asia,"  and  "  the  barren 
wilderness  of  the  American  Desert."  Colton,  the 
geographer,  in  1867  draws  a  heavy  pen  through 
his  former  desert.  When  writing  of  Kansas  he 
says :  "  The  western  portion  is  not  so  well  adapted 
to  sustain  a  large  population  as  the  more  eastern 
districts."  In  his  edition  of  1877  he  still  farther 
diminishes  the  traditional  barrenness,  and  confines 
the  Mituvaises  I'ervcs  to  a  limited  area  in  north- 
western Nebraska  and  southwestern  Dakota,  around 
the  sources  of  the  North  Platte  and  White  Earth 
rivers.  This  is  quite  in  contrast  with  his  state- 
ment in  1856,  when,  covering  an  extent  of  country 
from  Fort  Laramie  to  Wood  Eiver  —  three  hun- 
dred miles  —  he  says,  "  Entirely  unfit  for  cultiva- 
tion ; "  and  of  a  wide  range  south  of  the  Platte  and 
extending  into  Kansas,  he  remarks,  "Much  of  this 
country  is  unproductiv'e  and  sterile."  The  Amer- 
ican Desert,  while  able  to  confront  corps  of  civil 
and  military  engineers  and  explorers,  has  not  been 
able  to  make  a  stand  against  the  multitudes  of 
farming  immigration,  and  it  has  slowly  retreated, 
before  an  army  of  invading  ploughs,  toward  the 

8 


114  THE   "  GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT." 

iiioimtains.  One  section  has  turned  to  bay,  like 
an  animal  of  the  chase,  in  southwestern  Dakota 
and  northwestern  Nebraska,  but  for  what  length 
of  time  remains  to  be  seen.  Some  labor  has  been 
expended  by  the  writer  in  obtaining  information 
down  to  date  from  old  residents  of  that  region, 
and  of  scientific  experts  who  liave  made  offi- 
cial surveys  of  it  for  tlie  Government,  that  the 
reader  might  see  the  American  Sahara  on  its  latest 
exhibitions. 

A.  D.,  of  Franklin  County,  took  residence  in 
Nebraska  in  1869,  and  as  a  professional  man  has 
traversed  the  State  quite  extensively.  He  writes 
me  :  "  I  came  to  Butler  County  in  the  fall  of  1869, 
making  my  home  on  the  Platte.  It  was  then 
tliought  that  '  over  the  blutfs,'  that  is,  outside  the 
Platte  valley,  the  soil  was  of  no  account.  There 
were  three  small  school  districts  along  the  river. 
When  I  left  in  1880  there  were  sixty-three  school 
districts  in  tlie  county,  and  scarcely  a  foot  of  public 
land  to  be  had,  every  section  occupied.  It  was 
thought  in  1869  that  there  was  very  little  land 
worth  the  having  west  of  Butler  County.  How 
immigration,  with  the  plough,  scattered  our  theo- 
ries to  the  winds,  —  changed  our  theories  notwith- 
standing the  winds  ! " 

Since  that  date  settlements  in  Nebraska  have 
moved  west  from  the  centre  meridian  of  Butler 
County  fifty  miles  on  tlie  shortest  limit  and  one 
hundred  on  the  lontrest  limit.     This  latter  move- 


THE    "GREAT    AMERICAN    DESEllT."  115 

ment  embraces  a  belt  one  third  the  width  of  the 
State.  On  the  two  railroads  running  across  the 
State  there  are  continuous  settlements  to  the  Colo- 
rado and  Wyoming  lines.  The  average  progress 
west  along  our  entire  border,  from  the  British  to 
the  Me.\:ican  boundaries,  has  been  sixteen  miles  a 
year  for  forty  years  ;  but  into  these  desert  h^nds, 
so  supposed,  the  average  has  been  reduced. 

Another  resident  of  ISTebraska  since  1867  says  : 

"  My  own  impression  is  that  the  Bad  Lands  are 
about  the  best  part  of  our  State,  and  that  the 
American  Desert  is  destined  to  blossom  as  the 
rose.  There  is  sand  in  small  quantities  distrib- 
uted over  vast  areas,  and  some  of  our  farmers  like  a 
little  sand  and  some  would  have  more.  .  .  .  Some 
of  our  citizens  have  travelled  in  western  Nebraska, 
where  report  said  the  poor  land  was,  and  they  pro- 
nounce that  very  portion  of  country  excellent  for 
grazing.  .  .  .  There  is  a  clay  vegetable  mould  loam 
in  the  sand  along  the  Elkhorn  and  the  Beaver 
which  holds  the  sand  in  place,  and  the  ratio  is 
sufficient  to  make  good  soil  in  places  where  some 
farmers  would  declare  at  sight  that  that  land  is 
worthless." 

Prof  J.  E.  Todd,  of  the  United  States  Geological 
Survey,  a  man  of  thorougli,  cautious,  and  clear 
views,  says  of  Nebraska  :  "  I  believe  that  the  great 
desideratum  is  water.  The  soil  is  good  enough,  but 
the  water  is,  over  much  of  the  region,  one  hundred 


116  THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN   DESERT." 

feet  below  the  surface  or  more.  I  believe,  how- 
ever, that  the  rainfall  is  increasing  over  the  whole 
region,  and  I  presume  that  eventually  the  whole 
may  be  inhabited  tj[uite  thickly,  but  it  will  be 
by  the  help  of  irrigation.  ...  I  should  consider 
the  'barrens'  of  Nebraska  good  grazing  land  as  a 
rule." 

Anotlier,  who  had  assisted  in  an  official  survey 
of  the  northwestern  portion  of  the  State,  estimates 
the  Bad  Lands  at  less  than  thirty  townships. 

Of  those  whose  opinions  lie  in  manuscript  be- 
fore the  writer,  but  one  more  will  be  quoted,  — 
W.  F.  K.,  —  who  was  a  resident  business  man  in 
the  State  for  ten  years,  and  part  of  that  time 
Indian  agent  for  the  Government.  As  he  has 
travelled  over  every  portion  of  the  State,  his  opin- 
ions are  to  be  received  as  -weighty  and  correct. 
Having  traversed  in  one  trip  much  of  the  Repub- 
lican valley  and  the  South  Platte  from  its  mouth 
to  its  source,  he  remarks:-  — 

"  I  can  truly  say  that,  in  my  judgment,  there  is 
not  an  acre  of  ground  in  southwestern  Nebraska, 
where  it  is  possible  to  irrigate  the  soil,  but  that 
any  of  the  hardier  products  can  be  raised  in 
abundance ;  and  tlie  uplands  are  as  fine  a  natural 
pasturage  as  can  be  found  in  the  world,  and  are 
already  covered  by  thousands  of  heads  of  stock 
tliat  live  on  its  grasses  tlie  year  round.  The  same 
can  be  said  of  the  bottom  lands  in  the  northwest 


THE    "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESKUT."  117 

part  of  the  State.  .  .  .  There  is  a  strip  of  laDcl 
lying  between  the  North  Platte  and  the  Niobrara, 
of  perhaps  an  average  width  north  and  south  of 
fifty  miles  by  one  hundred  and  fifty  east  and  west, 
comprising  sand-liills  covered  by  a  scant  vegeta- 
tion, that  will  support  a  limited  amount  of  stock. 
Between  the  Niolnara  and  White  Kivers  is  a  strip 
of  rocky,  broken  lands  of  an  average  width,  north 
and  south,  of  twenty  miles,  by  a  hundred  or  more 
east  and  west,  covered  by  an  abundant  growth 
of  fair  quality  of  pine  timber.  And  now  comes 
the  only  actual  part  of  Nebraska  that  can  be 
called  a  desert.  It  is  contained  in  that  part  of 
the  country  lying  between  the  White  Eiver  and 
the  north  boundary  of  the  State,  less  than  thirty 
miles  north  and  south  by  perhaps  a  hundred  east 
and  west.  So  you  will  see  that  Colton  is  away 
off,  wrong,  when  he  says  that  the  Bad  Lands,  or 
Mcmvaiscs  Terrcs,  comprise  a  tenth  of  the  State." 

Of  the  great  central  and  eastern  sections  of  the 
State,  he  adds :  "  All  who  have  ever  lived  there 
know  tliat  the  natural  soil  is  far  superior  to  the 
made  gardens  of  New  England." 

On  an  official  United  States  map  of  Nebraska,^ 
drawn  from  Government  surveys  under  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Platte,  there  is  a  curving  belt  extend- 

1  Map  of  Nebraska,  compiled  and  drawn  under  the  direction 
of  Capt.  W.  S.  Stanton.  Headijuarters  Department  of  the 
Platte,  Fort  Omaha,  Nebraska,  June  23,  1881. 


118  THE   "GREAT   AMEllICAN   DESERT." 

injjj  froiii  tlio  I'Litte  to  the  Niobrara  and  iiortliern 
boundary,  characterized  by  sand-hills,  with  some 
alkali  niarslies.  A  thin  coarse  grass  covers  the 
summits  of  the  hills,  and  a  rank  thick  growth  the 
valleys.  Since  it  was  so  mapped,  in  1881,  thrifty 
settlements  have  entered  the  southern  and  north- 
ern sections  of  this  belt.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  such 
regions,  at  first  sight  to  the  soldier  and  amateur 
explorer  so  forbidding,  have  yielded  to  the  farmer. 
Twenty-five  years  ago  the  eastern  third  of  Ne- 
braska, now  so  thrifty  in  agriculture,  would  have 
been  mapped  in  the  same  way  even  as  Long  and 
Pike  did  sixty  and  seventy  years  ago. 

Passing  from  northwestern  Nebraska  into  Da- 
kota, one  continues  in  these  Bad  Lands,  so  called, 
and  may  traverse  a  region  of  them,  right  and  left 
and  to  the  eastward  and  northerly  of  the  Black 
Hills,  as  large  as  Massachusetts.  Primeval  vol- 
canic action  and  the  abrasion  by  the  weather  for 
long  centuries  have  left  pyramid  rocks,  as  in  the 
Garden  of  the  Gods,  and  wild  ravines  and  gulches. 
The  buttes,  pyramids,  or  mounds  take  on  all  forms, 
and  some  the  height  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet. 
The  soil  is  fertile,  sometimes  to  excess,  and  tlie 
high  mesas,  as  well  as  the  intervales,  are  covered 
with  heavy  grasses,  and  by  their  attraction  to 
grazing  animals  make  the  region  quite  a  game- 
park. 

The  careless  interchange  of  the  terms  "Bad 
Land"  and  "desert,"  as  if  the  two  were  synony- 


THE    "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  119 

mons,  has  doue  mncli  to  mislead,  and  to  give  the 
impression  that  the  Bad  Lands  are  barren.  This 
is  far  £rom  fact,  and  the  error  has  arisen  from  the 
only  partial  adoption  of  the  title  that  the  early 
trapping  aud  trading  French  voyagcurs  gave  to 
these  weird  lands.  Because  of  the  gulches  and 
little  canons  that  intersect  them,  and  from  the 
fatty,  sticky,  "gumbo"  quality  of  the  soil,  they 
found  it  quite  difticult  to  travel  there  with  ponies 
and  pack  animals,  and  therefore  named  such  re- 
gions mauvaises  terres  pour  traverser.  Writers  and 
geographers^  have  taken  by  abbreviation  the  first 
half  only  of  the  phrase,  and  so  have  applied  the 
word  "  bad  "  to  the  soil,  whereas  it  belongs  only  to 
the  pony-trail  through  it. 

The  library  of  errors  which  we  have  been  glean- 
ing is  exceedingly  interesting  reading,  as  in  con- 
trast with  the  existing  facts.  The  old  authors 
come  to  view,  much  as  the  fossils  of  extinct  races 
in  a  cabinet  of  natural  history.  To  follow  to-day, 
as  we  have,  personally  on  the  trail  of  Pike  and  Long 
and  Irving,  and  find  those  innumerable  herds,  and 
grain-fields  by  the  thousand  acres,  and  magnificent 
cities,  and  railways  in  the  "  desert,"  carries  one 
through  the  amazing  into  the  amusing  in  official 
and  literary  works.  It  is  among  vivid  and  happy 
memories  that  w^e  once  rode  in  a  prairie  wagon 
sixteen  miles  through  continuous  wheat-fields  of 
individual  and  German  farms  ;  and  by  cars  through 
one  wheat-farm  of  thirty  thousand  acres,  affording 


120  THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT." 

six  hundred  thousand  bushels  a  year ;  and  thirty 
minutes,  by  the  held  watch,  at  fair  railroad  speed, 
along  a  field  of  corn  undivided  by  any  fence  or 
opening,  —  ten  miles  of  corn!  These  were  on 
Pike's  barren  frontier,  providentially  interposed 
to  keep  the  young  republic  from  spreading  there 
to  its  ruin,  and  on  portions  of  Long's  regions 
"  bearing  a  manifest  resemblance  to  the  deserts  of 
Siberia."  This  corn  and  wheat  were  west  of  the 
meridian  of  the  mouth  of  the  Platte,  described  by 
Greenhow,  as  late  as  1845,  as  "  uninhabitable  by  a 
people  depending  upon  agriculture."  Nor  are  the 
three  grain-regions,  visited  and  insjjected,  excep- 
tional and  selected.  They  are  incidental  to  any 
of  the  great  north  and  soutli  thoroughfares  be- 
tween the  two  Eed  Eivers  of  the  United  States,  — 
tlie  Manitoban  and  the  Texan.  These  grains  and 
herds  are  in  the  "  arid  tract  extending  south  nearly 
to  Texas,"  according  to  the  "  Westminster  Eeview," 
which  tract,  tlie  "  Edinburgh  "  said,  had  "  a  general 
breadth  of  six  hundred  or  seven  hundred  miles, 
and  extends  from  south  to  north  nearly  fourteen 
hundred  miles."  It  is  the  same  Great  American 
Desert  which  to-day  is  putting  cereals  and  meat 
within  the  reach  of  hungry  Europe.  And  yet,  as 
late  as  1873,  this  same  American  Desert  is  made  to 
reappear  on  the  more  advanced  points  of  settle- 
ment, somewhat  broken  by  arable  land,  extending 
from  Mexico  to  the  British  line.  Like  the  old 
military  narratives,  it  is  set  forth  by  a  soldier  and 


THE    "GREAT    AMERICAN   DESERT."  121 

"described  from  personal  observation  extending 
through  fourteen  years  of  military  service  on  the 
plains."  The  article  ^  is  a  record  of  extended 
travel,  and  embraces  much  valuable  information, 
with  this  just  and  general  caution  ;  "  There  are,  of 
course,  in  so  summary  an  account,  many  fine  sec- 
tions of  limited  extent  which  could  not  be  noticed 
in  a  sketch  which  undertakes  to  give  only  general 
characteristics." 

The  General  takes  and  states  clearly  his  position, 
like  an  old  soldier  that  he  is  :  — 

"  That  the  western  limit  of  our  agricultural 
lands  has  already  been  reached  (1873)  by  settle- 
ments along  the  frontier  from  the  Eio  Grande  to 
the  forty-ninth  parallel  of  latitude.  .  .  .  We  have 
reached  the  border  all  along  from  Dakota  to  Texas, 
where  land  for  nothing  is  no  cheaper  than  good 
land  at  thirty  dollars  an  acre.  .  .  .  From  the  one 
hundredth  meridian  to  the  Sierra  Nevada  Moun- 
tains, a  distance  of  twelve  hundred  miles,  there  is 
not  more  than  one  acre  to  the  hundred  that  has 
any  appreciable  value  for  agricultural  puiposes,  or 
that  will  for  the  next  hundred  years  sell  for  any 
appreciable  sum.  Moreover,  for  one  hundred  miles 
before  reaching  that  meridian  there  is  compara- 
tively little  good  land.  ...  It  is  possible  that  at 

1  The  Great  Middle  Eegion  of  the  United  States,  and  its 
Limited  Space  of  Arable  Land.  By  Gen.  W.  B.  Hazen,  North 
American  Review,  January,  1875. 


122  THE   "  GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT." 

some  remote  period  the  good  lands  of  the  country 
may  be  so  densely  populated  as  to  cause  many  to 
seek  a  precarious  existence  by  such  meagre  farming 
as  is  possible  in  this  region.  .  .  .  We  must  soon 
face  a  condition  of  facts  utterly  new  in  tlie  economy 
of  the  country,  when  not  new  but  old  States  must 
make  room  for  the  increase  of  population." 

The  north  and  south  line,  therefore,  according 
to  General  Hazen,  along  which  tillable  land  disap- 
pears mostly  on  the  east  of  it,  and  land  without 
any  appreciable  value  for  agriculture  takes  posses- 
sion mostly  of  the  west  of  it,  —  a  line  dividing  in  a 
general  way  between  the  fertile  and  the  barren,  — 
would  start  on  the  British  border  near  Pembina 
and  run  near  Yankton,  Dakota  ;  Ellsworth,  Kansas  ; 
and  by  Wichita  through  Texas.  On  the  west  of 
the  Mississippi  the  General  gives  the  area  of  this 
worthless  land,  of  course  only  by  a  general  esti- 
mation, in  this  way :  Of  Dakota,  excepting  a  few 
small  fertile  strips,  he  says  that  not  one  acre  in  a 
hundred  is  fit  for  agriculture.  One  half  only  of 
Nebraska  and  of  Kansas  he  concedes  to  the  farmer ; 
one  acre  in  twenty-five  in  Colorado ;  one  in  seventy 
in  New  Mexico ;  and  one  in  eighty  in  Arizona. 
"  The  whole  amount  of  arable  land  in  Utah  is  so 
very  small  as  scarcely  to  admit  of  comparison." 
Yet  elsewhere  this  writer  gives  "  slightly  over  a 
hundredth  of  the  area  as  arable."  It  is  the  half 
of  Kansas  west  of  the  meridian  of  Fort  Hayes  that 


THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  123 

the  General  places  in  the  list  of  desert  lands.  Of 
California  this  strong  remark  is  made :  "  About 
one  third  of  the  western  half  of  the  State  is 
available,  while  not  more  than  a  twentieth  of 
the  eastern  part  can  be  used  by  any  of  the  pro- 
cesses of  farming  which  will  be  used  in  America 
for  a  hundred  years  to  come," 

Montana,  he  estimates,  has  about  one  million  of 
acres  of  fine  land  for  the  farmer  out  of  her  ninety- 
two  millions.  The  fertile  and  inviting  valley  of  the 
Yellowstone,  as  it  is  generally  understood,  General 
Hazen  pronounces  "a  mytli."  One  half  of  Texas 
he  regards  as  dry,  broken,  and  barren  country,  and 
unfit  for  agriculture.  Nearly  or  quite  one  half 
of  the  Indian  Territory  on  tlie  west  is  surrendered 
as  too  dry  and  barren  to  till.  Nevada  is  classed 
with  Utah  in  general  description,  having  "  only  the 
merest  patches  of  arable  land,"  with  tlie  estimate 
of  not  more  than  one  acre  to  the  hundred.  Idaho 
follows  Montana  in  the  general  outlines  of  quality 
for  a  farming  population,  or  about  one  to  a  hundred 
of  arable  land.  In  passing  from  Idaho  into  Oregon 
and  Washington,  our  author  looks  in  vain  for  the 
"  broad,  rich  valley  of  the  Columbia."  This  river, 
he  says,  chafes  through  mountain  gorges,  with 
here  and  there  a  valley,  along  which,  if  a  trail  be 
possible,  "  the  wheels  cut  into  a  loose,  arid  sand, 
with  here  and  there  a  sage-bush  so  large  as  to 
have   grown   into   a   shrub   with  a  stalk  several 


124  THE    "  tIREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT." 

inches  in  diameter,  and  extending  its  brandies 
over  several  yards  of  ground.  We  find  these  gen- 
eral features  of  a  broken,  mountainous  country  till 
we  cross  the  Sierra." 

This  leaves  about  two  thirds  of  Oregon  and 
Washington  to  be  added  to  the  arid,  rocky,  and 
desolate  regions  which  General  Hazen  has  been 
collecting  and  sketching  in  his  article  in  the 
"  North  American." 

After  this  manner,  in  per  cents  and  descriptions, 
General  Hazen  passes  in  review  fifteen  States 
and  Territories.  They  aggregate  about  1,760,000 
square  miles,  of  which  he  estimates  about  350,000 
square  miles  as  arable,  —  only  about  one  fifth  of 
the  whole.  In  the  lands  called  arable  he  includes 
only  those  that  are  irrigable  ;  and  so,  after  deduct- 
ing all  that  can  in  any  ordinary  circumstances  be 
put  under  the  plough,  lie  leaves  in  the  region 
outlined  about  1,410,000  square  miles  of  territory 
that  no  j)rocesses  of  farming  now  known  can 
utilize.  The  amount  of  desert  or  "  bad "  land  is 
equal  to  about  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  States 
as  large  as  Massachusetts.  The  non-arable  area  of 
General  Hazen  is  equal  to  the  German  Empire, 
France,  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  Italy,  Spain, 
Sweden,  Norway,  Belgium,  Portugal,  Switzerland, 
Greece,  and  thirty-two  Palestines. 

This  article  in  the  "  North  American "  recalls 
at  once  the  narr9,tives  of  the  expeditions  of  Pike 
and  Long   and  other  explorers,  who  during  this 


THE    "GREAT' AMERICAN    DESERT."  125 

entire  century  have  been  furnishing  our  geogra- 
phers and  our  untravelled  authors  with  materials 
for  tlie  Great  American  Desert.  The  historical 
germ  of  this  Sahara  appears  in  Jefferson's  letter 
to  Dupout,  already  quoted,  in  which  he  calls  the 
tract  desired  "  a  barren  land." 

As  a  rule  agricnlturists  are  not  good  military 
engineers,  and  would  do  but  poorly  in  locating 
military  roads  and  forts.  Is  it  not  possible  that 
military  men  would  be  equally  unfortunate  in  dis- 
covei'ing  agricultural  lands  and  in  locating  farms  ? 
At  least,  it  remains  to  be  explained  why  officers 
of  the  army,  in  their  reconnoissances,  reported  the 
original  and  wild  lands  now  making  Iowa,  Minne- 
sota, Missouri,  Kansas,  and  Arkansas  as  naturally 
unfit  for  human  habitation.  A  possible  explana- 
tion may  lurk  in  this  grave  confession  of  General 
Hazen :  — 

"  The  Government  has,  year  after  year,  at  great 
expense,  sent  parties  of  scientific  men  to  traverse 
these  countries  ;  to  gather  up,  describe,  and  publish 
all  that  could  be  found  out  relative  to  beasts,  birds, 
insects,  and  fishes,  and  every  conceivable  creeping, 
crawling,  or  flying  creature ;  also  correct  reports 
of  its  geology.  But  I  have  never  known  any  one 
cliarged  to  learn  and  report  that  most  important 
of  all  items, '  whether  it  is  good  for  agriculture.' " 

In  calling  public  attention  to  this  vast  amount, 
as  he  estimates  it,  of  desert  land  and  bad  laud, 


126  THE   "GllEAT   AMERICAN   DESERT." 

iiiiiuliabitable  for  various  reasons,  General  Hazen 
dwells  prominently  on  the  great  northern  belt 
from  the  Mississippi  Valley  to  the  Pacific.  It  is 
due  to  him  to  say  that  in  his  judgment  "  military 
or  State  considerations  seem  sufficient  to  warrant 
the  construction  of  one  road  [railroad]  which,  for 
many  reasons  should  have  been  built  along  the 
thirty-second  parallel,  as  it  probably  would  have 
been  had  the  South  been  represented  in  Congress." 
In  his  hostility  to  the  Northern  Pacific  the  author 
permits  himself  to  speak  of  its  advertisements  as 
containing  "more  or  less  positive  falsehoods;  issu- 
ing a  series  of  misrepresentations  of  the  climate;" 
and  that  eight  years  before,  when  in  the  valley 
of  the  Yellowstone,  he  "  saw  the  iniquity  of  the 
whole  scheme."  Jefferson  Davis  when  Secretary 
of  War  (1853-57)  had  a  similar  hostility  to  a  North- 
ern railway  and  an  approbation  for  a  Southern 
one  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Pacific.  Under 
his  direction  Lieutenant  Stevens  made  a  survey 
of  the  northern  country,  and  the  official  report  of 
it  was  so  favorable  and  tempting  to  immigration, 
from  its  rich  natural  resources,  and  so  inviting  to  a 
trans-continental  railroad,  that  the  Secretary  muti- 
lated it  before  publication  lest  it  should  damage 
his  Southern  policy  and  his  schemes  for  a  railroad 
on  the  thirty-second  parallel.  Afterward,  when 
Mr.  Davis  was  otherwise  very  busy  in  the  Civil 
War,  the  suppressed  portions  of  the  report  were 
published. 


THE   "GIIEAT   AMERICAN    DESEltT."  127 

Be  the  explanation  what  it  may,  as  to  this  pre- 
sentation of  so  much  so-called  worthless  land  in 
our  Northwest,  the  fact  confronts  us  tliat  farmers, 
with  wagons  and  ploughs  and  families,  have  car- 
ried their  surveys  into  tliese  fabulous  barrens  and 
deserts,  and  liave  converted  them  into  the  most 
magniiicent  farming  lands  in  the  world.  At  last 
the  Government  appears  to  have  conquered  fable 
and  legend,  for  it  luis  followed  up  this  myth  of  a 
"  desert "  as  a  retreating  mirage  and  finally  located 
what  little  of  substance  it  has.  On  the  Govern- 
ment map  of  1882,  based  on  the  public  surveys 
and  issued  from  the  General  Land  Office,  this 
much-magnified  and  long-sought  waste  is  placed 
on  the  southwest  of  Salt  Lake  and  somewhat 
bordering  it.  The  barren  tract  is  mucli  less 
than  twice  the  area  of  our  smallest  State,  Ehode 
Island,  —  1,085  square  miles,  —  and  bears  the 
name  so  long  a  terror  in  our  own  country  and 
in  Europe,  —  Great  American  Desert !  Under 
the  immigrant  invasion  and  pressure  of  farmers, 
mechanics,  manufacturers,  and  merchants,  with 
schools  and  churches  and  colleges  and  legislatures 
and  courts  and  elections,  this  spectre  has  retreated 
thirteen  hundred  miles  from  the  west  bank  of  the 
Mississippi.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the 
retreat  will  be  continued,  even  in  the  face  of  offi- 
cial reports  to  the  contrary,  as  it  has  thus  far  been 
made  to  retreat. 

In   the   late   elaborate   and  valuable    report  of 


128  THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN   DESERT." 

Major  J,  W.  Powell/  he  says  as  to  agriculture : 
"  Experience  teaches  that  it  is  not  wise  to  depend 
upon  rainliill  where  the  amount  is  less  than  twenty 
inches  annually,"  and  this  should  be  distributed 
with  some  evenness  through  the  year.  The  border- 
line of  this  twenty-inch  rainfall  "  begins  on  the 
southern  boundary  of  the  United  States,  about 
sixty  miles  west  of  Brownsville,  on  tlie  Itio  Grande 
del  Norte,  and  intersects  the  northern  boundary 
about  fifty  miles  east  of  Pembina." 

The  westward  growth  of  the  nation  since  1803, 
and  especially  since  the  locomotive  arrived  first  on 
the  Mississippi  and  at  Eock  Island  in  1854,  makes 
US  quite  sceptical  whether  agriculture  will  respect 
Powell's  line  and  pause  on  it.  Hitherto  it  has  not 
much  regarded  scientific  and  military  limitations. 
Major  Powell  well  says  that  "far  too  much  atten- 
tion has  heretofore  been  paid  to  tlie  chemical  con- 
stitution of  soils,  .  .  .  and  that  a  stranger  entering 
the  arid  region  is  apt  to  conclude  that  the  soils 
are  sterile,  because  of  their  chemical  composition ; 
but  experience  demonstrates  the  fact  that  all  soils 
are  suitable  for  agricultural  purposes  when  prop- 
erly supplied  with  water."  ^  As  5'et  the  supply 
of  water  for  irrigating  is  but  poorly  utilized,  and 
how  much  it  can  do  but  poorly  known.  A  cubic 
foot  of  running  water  per  second  will  make  a  hun- 
dred acres  fruitful,  and  the  water-slied  on  either 

1  Arid  Lands  of  the  United  States.    1879. 
•^  Ibid,  p.  10. 


THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  129 

slope  of  the  Eocky  Mountains  and  Sierras  is  pro- 
vided with  many  and  magnificent  streams.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  the  Government  will  move  in 
good  time  to  prevent  liuge  water  monopolies  in 
our  deep  interior,  since  it  has  been  somewhat  too 
late  in  preventing  land  monopolies.  A  national 
water  otiice  as  well  constituted  and  managed  as 
the  land  office  might  do  much  in  handling  and 
distributing  equitably  to  private  owners  those 
magnificent  streams  that  flow  east  and  south  and 
west  from  the  Eocky  Mountains  and  the  Sierras, 
and  thus  finally  make  those  arid  and  desert  lands 
to  rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose. 

Moreover,  the  increase  of  the  water  supply  when 
a  country  is  opened  by  settlement  has  an  important 
bearing  on  this  subject.  That  this  increase  does 
take  place  should  be  conceded.  In  his  report 
Major  Powell  embraces  Gibert's  report  on  the 
water  supply  of  the  interior.  Gibert  says  that  the 
settlers  "  frequently  told  me  that  whenever  and 
wherever  a  settlement  was  established  there  fol- 
lowed in  a  few  years  an  increase  of  water  supply." 
Prof.  Cyrus  Thomas  made  a  careful  study  of  the 
increase  of  the  water  supply  at  the  western  edge  of 
the  plains  in  18G9,  and  Dr.  Ilayden  thus  reports 
him  in  his  "  Eeport  for  1867-69,"  pp.  237  :  "  Since 
the  Territory  [Colorado]  has  begun  to  be  settled, 
towns  and  cities  built  up,  farms  cultivated,  mines 
opened,  and  roads  made  and  travelled,  there  has 
been  a  gradual  increase  of  moisture." 


130  THE    "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT." 

Concerning  the  Catliolic  Missions  in  New 
Mexico  and  California  Major  Powell  says :  "  In 
this  history  of  the  settlement  of  tlie  several 
districts  an  important  fact  has  been  uniformly 
observed,  —  in  the  first  years  of  the  settlement 
tlie  streams  have  steadily  increased  in  volume. 
.  .  .  The  increase  is  abundantly  proved ;  it  is 
a  matter  of  universal  experience.  Tlie  observa- 
tions of  the  writer  thereon  have  been  widely 
extended."  ^ 

The  Utah  basin  furnishes  a  bold  illustration  of 
this  increase  of  water,  be  the  cause  what  it  may. 
Between  1850  and  1860  Great  Salt  Lake  made  a 
steady  and  apparentty  permanent  gain  of  between 
seven  and  eight  feet.  It  increased  its  area  by 
overflow  of  its  ancient  shores  from  1750  square 
miles  to  2166,  —  a  gain  of  about  seventeen  per 
cent.  Perhaps  as  careful  a  study  of  other  arid 
yet  occupied  lands  would  show  an  encouraging 
increase  of  v/ater  supply.  Whether  the  increase 
is  due  to  settlement  or  to  some  occult  natural 
causes  is  a  mooted  question,  but  it  is  not  philo- 
sophical to  deny  the  facts  because  we  cannot 
explain  them.  The  practical  thing  is  to  see  the 
twenty-inch  water  line  and  the  front  of  an  agri- 
cultural immigration  move  off  westward  /7a?'^  jjass?/, 
even  as  they  have  been  doing  to  some  extent  for 
half  a  century.  The  grasses  and  the  trees  thrive 
beyond  it,  and  why  not  the  cereals  and  the  vege- 

1  Report,  pp.  90,  91. 


THE    "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  131 

taLles,  when  man  by  the  sweat  of  his  face  becomes 
auxiliary  to  Nature  ? 

As  to  this  rise  of  Salt  Lake  and  tlie  general 
increase  of  moisture  in  the  arid  districts,  a  gentle- 
man of  intelligence,  and  resident  in  the  great  West 
beyond  South  Pass  since  1852,  and  much  of  this 
time  engaged  in  stock-ranching,  gave  the  author 
this  information,  —  other  stock-men  with  whom 
he  spent  a  month  in  the  autumn  of  1885  con- 
firming it :  "  Before  the  country  was  stocked  the 
land  was  porous  or  opien,  and  absorbed  the  water 
that  fell ;  now,  stocking  has  tramped  and  hardened 
it,  and  more  of  the  water  is  retained  on  the  sur- 
face or  finds  its  way  to  Salt  Lake.  There  are 
lakes  and  pools  now  where  there  were  none  for- 
merly, because  of  the  tramping  and  hardening  of 
the  ground  by  stock." 

It  is  gratifying  to  be  able  to  confirm  these  views, 
as  to  the  increase  of  moisture  in  the  arid  districts 
of  the  West,  by  very  recent  information,  carefully 
obtained  by  scientific  and  official  observations : 
"  Proofs  of  a  growing  rainfall  in  the  far  West 
are  thickening.  A  valuable  testimony  in  this 
direction  just  now  comes  from  General  ]\Iorrow, 
United  States  Army,  in  command  at  Fort  Sidney. 
In  an  address  delivered  last  month  at  the  first 
annual  fair  in  Cheyenne  County,  on  the  western 
frontier  of  Nebraska,  he  gave  a  leaf  from  his  own 
experience.  Twenty  years  before,  he  had  led  sol- 
diers through  that  identical  reuion  when  there  was 


132  THE    "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT." 

no  settlement  for  five  liundred  miles  east  of  Jules- 
burg.  Then  he  had  observed  that  men  slept  in 
the  open  air  from  May  to  November  without 
having-  their  blankets  dampened  ;  but  in  August, 
1887,  he  saw  on  the  same  ground  dews  as  heavy 
as  ever  at  the  same  season  in  Michigan  or  Arkan- 
sas. During  the  first  three  fourths  of  the  present 
year  he  reports  the  rainfall  at  his  post  to  have 
been  fourteen  inches,  while  the  annual  fall  in 
fertile  Malta  does  not  exceed  fourteen,  and  that 
about  Spanish  Madrid  is  only  nine.  The  annual 
amount  of  rain  registered  at  Camp  Douglas  in  its 
first  year,  1861,  was  eleven  inches;  but  in  1874, 
the  last  of  five  years  during  which  General  Morrow 
held  command  at  that  post,  the  rainfall  had  more 
than  doubled,  the  rain-gauge  showing  twenty- 
seven  inches.  The  speaker  emphasized  these  facts, 
because  in  portions  of  the  Cheyenne  region  the 
last  two  seasons  have  been  exceptionally  dry.  He 
also  showed  that  within  the  last  three  months 
eighty-three  thousand  acres  of  Government  land 
had  been  taken  up  in  that  county,  largely  by 
homesteaders.  The  fair  exhibits,  also,  already 
showed  every  variety  of  farm  produce.  These 
facts  are  the  more  noteworthy  because  Cheyenne 
County  stretches  four  degrees  west  of  the  famous 
meridian  of  100°,  which  in  Government  publica- 
tions figures  as  a  line  that  agricultui'e  cannot  cross. 
They  are  still  more  striking  if  we  note  how  they 
refute  the  doctrine  laid  down  by  the  'North  Amer- 


THE    "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT.  loo 

icau  Keview '  in  1858.  At  that  date,  wheu  there 
was  scarcely  one  Nebraska  hamlet  forty  miles  west 
of  the  Missouri,  the  '  Xorth  American '  described 
our  people  as  having  '  already  reached  their  west- 
ern inland  frontier,'  and  the  westward  stream  of 
emigration  as  there  '  dammed  up  so  that  it  must 
fork  northward  or  southward.'  The  Missouri 
bluffs,  accordingly,  were  described  as  '  ashore  at 
the  termination  of  a  vast  ocean  desert  nearly 
one  thousand  miles  in  breadth,  which  it  was 
proposed  to  traverse,  if  at  all,  with  caravans  of 
camels,  and  which  interposed  a  final  barrier  to 
the  establishment  of  large  communities,  —  agri- 
cultural, mercantile,  or  even  pastoral.'  Yet  be- 
fore the  close  of  1880  Nebraska  numbered  half 
a  million  inhabitants."  ^ 

It  remains  only  to  state,  in  a  few  brief  sen- 
tences and  in  certain  statistics  not  remarkably  dry 
to  an  American,  and  especially  one  of  the  Western 
type,  what  has  been  done  in  the  way  of  settling 
and  civilizing  this  "  desert."  It  was  the  opinion 
of  Lieutenant  Pike  that  immigrants  would  be 
compelled  from  very  barrenness  to  limit  their 
wanderings  "  to  the  borders  of  the  Missouri  and 
Mississippi,  while  they  leave  the  prairies,  inca- 
pable of  cultivation,  to  the  wandering  and  uncivil- 
ized aborigines  of  the  country."  This  Government 
explorer  abandons  to  natural  isolation  and  to  the 

1  The  Nation,  Nov.  3,  188". 


134  THE   "GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT." 

American  Ijodouins  our  territory  l)et\\'een  the  Brit- 
ish line  and  southern  Arkansas,  aud  west  from  the 
]Mississi])])i  to  the  mountains.  Tliis  quadrant  now 
embraces  Minnesota,  Dakota,  Iowa,  Nebraska,  Mis- 
souri, Kansas,  Arkansas  to  the  Indian  Territory,  — 
an  area  in  total  equal  to  nine  New  Englands.  As 
the  latter  —  a  region  as  large  as  eiglit  States  like 
Massachusetts  and  organized  solely  for  Indian  oc- 
cupation in  1844  —  has  not  been  open  and  exposed 
tu  white  development,  it  cannot  be  embraced  in  the 
summary  of  facts  to  follow.  It  may  be  said,  how- 
ever, in  this  connection  that  its  equal  development 
is  merely  a  question  of  time,  for  in  some  explora- 
tions of  it  in  1880  we  marked  it  as  in  no  way 
inferior  to  Missouri  for  human  homes,  and  there- 
fore may  be  occupied  as  densely  as  the  other  seven 
divisions.  In  a  half-dozen  or  so  of  particulars  it 
can  now  be  shown  how  immigrants,  M'ith  their 
agricultural,  meclianical,  and  manufacturing  in- 
struments, have  surveyed  and  rescued  this  region 
from  military  explorers  and  dismal  congressional 
reports.  Aggregating  the  population  of  tlie  six 
States  and  one  Territory  named,  when  the  re- 
spective census  of  each  was  first  taken,  it  ap- 
pears that  they  all  then  had  472,040  inhabitants. 
Tlie  total  population  of  the  seven  in  1880  was 
8,746,044.  This  is  something  more  than  one 
sixth  of  the  population  of  the  country,  and  more 
than  double  the  population  of  New  England,  and 
a  fair  show  for  Pike's  prairie  regions  "incapable 


THE   "  GREAT    AMERICAN    DESERT."  135 

of  cultivation,"  and  Long's  "abode  of  perpetual 
desolation." 

The  grain  products  of  the  quadrant  in  question, 
as  reported  in  1880  (for  1879),  were  642,416,200 
bushels.  This  is  more  than  forty  times  the  total 
amount  of  the  same  six  grains  in  all  New  England 
for  the  same  year.  These  grains  are  barley,  buck- 
wheat, corn,  oats,  rye,  and  wheat.  Nor  is  it  in 
cereals  alone  that  this  desert  land,  so  called,  has 
shown  its  products.  The  cash  value  of  its  manu- 
factures is  reported  by  the  last  census  to  have  been 
$365,098,571  in  the  year  1879;  and,  what  is  much 
more  significant,  during  the  same  year  this  region 
had  in  the  public  schools  1,567,164  pupils, — 
young  "  American  Bedouins." 

IMinnesota  is  the  northeast  corner  of  the  tradi- 
tional desert,  and  we  think  of  it  now  mainly  as  a 
wheat-field  ten  times  the  area  of  Massachusetts. 
Yet  note  the  timber  item  in  its  natural  wealth. 
A  belt  of  3,200,000  acres  of  white  and  black  oak, 
maple,  hickory,  basswood,  cottonwood,  elm,  tama- 
rack, and  other  hard  woods  up  to  the  number 
of  thirty  varieties,  stretches  across  the  middle  of 
the  State.  In  the  northeast  of  it  is  an  immense 
pine  forest  of  13,440,000  acres,  —  more  than  twice 
the  number  of  acres  in  Massachusetts. 

By  Act  of  Congress  of  March  3,  1877,  certain 
lands  were  declared  to  be  and  named  desert  land, 
lying  mostly  to  the  westward  of  the  mythical 
desert  which  we  have  been  followinij.     Tlie  Act 


136  THE    "GREAT   AMElilCAN    DESERT." 

thus  defines  them  :  "  All  laiuls,  exclusive  of  timber 
and  mineral  lands,  which  will  not  without  irri- 
gation ])roduce  some  agricultural  crop,  are  deemed 
and  held  to  be  desert  land,  under  this  Act."  These 
lands  are  in  demand.  From  March  3,  1877,  the 
date  of  the  Act,  to  June  30,  1883,  5,103  entries  of 
such  land  were  made,  and  the  land-ofFice  treasury- 
received  for  the  same  $401,036.62.  This  is  the 
amount  of  the  first  payment  of  twenty-five  cents 
an  acre.  When  the  final  payment  is  made  of  one 
dollar  an  acre  at  the  end  of  three  years,  the  re- 
ceipts will  be  $2,008,346.84.  Thousands  of  farms 
and  homes  have  been  introduced  into  such  desert 
lands,  and  a  network  of  railway  is  being  thrown 
over  the  whole. 

For  fifty  years  an  army  of  agricultural  invaders, 
crossing  the  Mississippi,  have  been  crowding  the 
Great  American  Desert  toward  the  Pacific;  and  they 
have  made  annually  the  daily  march  of  the  Eoman 
army  in  its  conquering  progress.  Lately  our  sci- 
entific explorers  have  discovered  that  this  ghostly 
desert  has  been  displaced  by  the  best  grain  lands 
and  timber  lands  and  grazing  lands  and  mineral 
lands  of  the  world,  it  never  having  been  more  than 
a  ghostly  delusion. 

Tradition  ascribes  a  remarkable  act  to  Franklin. 
In  one  of  those  courtly  halls  and  gatherings  in 
Europe,  where  nobility  and  statesmanship  and 
diplomacy  were  toying  with  the  young  Republic, 
there  hung  ^  map  of  the  United  States,  with  that 


THE   "GREAT   AMERICAN    DESERT."  137 

disheartening  inscription  curving  from  the  Texan 
to  the  British  border,  —  "The  Great  American 
Desert."  Franklin  took  a  pen  and  drew  a  broad 
erasing  line  through  the  title.  Was  it  not  a  pro- 
phetic pen  that  Benjamin  Franklin  then  used  ? 


138      LANDIIOLDINGS   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

LARGE   LANDIIOLDINGS    IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

IT  was  at  his  own  expense  that  De  Soto,  under 
the  patronage  of  the  Emperor  Cliarles  V., 
undertook  the  conquest  of  Florida.  The  Florida 
of  that  day  was  all  of  the  present  United  States 
south  of  New  York  and  of  its  southern  parallel 
of  latitude,  and  extended  into  the  unknown  West. 
De  Soto  was,  by  royal  commission,  to  be  the  civil 
and  military  head  of  both  Cuba  and  this  Florida, 
and  he  was  to  have  a  princely  estate  somewhere 
in  this  country,  fifteen  leagues  by  thirty  in  extent. 
It  was  in  1538  that  the  gallant  invader  set  sail 
with  a  band,  Spanish  and  Portuguese,  of  nine  hun- 
dred and  fifty  men,  young  and  vigorous,  and  with 
scarcely  a  gray  hair,  bearing  away  a  freight  of  am- 
bitions to  the  New  World.  Four  years  and  two 
months  later,  at  midnight,  De  Soto  came  stealthily 
into  the  possession  of  a  grave  in  the  Mississippi, 
twenty  miles  below  the  mouth  of  tlie  Arkansas. 

This  magnificent  gift  of  twenty-five  nnllion  of 
acres  within  the  present  t^irritory  of  the.  United 
States  was  an  august  opening  to  a  most  remark- 
able series  of  land-iirants  in  North  America.     We 


LAXDHOLDINGS   IN   THE    UNITED    STATES.       139 

stand  amazed  at  tlie  amplitude  of  tlie  imperial 
gift  and  at  the  area  of  the  personal  and  private 
domain  of  the  great  immigrant  if  he  shall  ever 
come  in  possession.  Yet  for  about  three  hundred 
and  fifty  years  this  series  of  immense  gifts  and 
acquisitions  has  been  running.  The  grants  of  land 
by  the  Spanish,  French,  and  English  crowns  to 
individuals  and  to  companies  in  those  old  eras 
of  discoveries  and  of  colonies  were  on  so  grand  a 
scale  that  one  might  almost  think  of  those  nion- 
archs  as  silent  partners  when  the  dry  land  was 
made  to  appear  during  the  creative  days.  And  the 
amazement  stirred  by  the  size  of  those  possessions 
of  two  and  three  centuries  ago  would  be  repeated 
to-day,  in  view  of  the  immense  personal  and  cor- 
porate land  estates  now  acquired  and  held  in  our 
country,  if  they  were  not  abundant  enough  to  be 
common  and  of  constant  multiplication. 

It  would  be  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  this 
chapter  to  give  even  a  partial  list  of  these  grants 
made  prior  to  the  establishment  of  our  Government. 
Yet  a  few  may  be  named,  indexes  to  the  whole,  to 
accomplish  our  object,  —  to  impress  on  the  reader 
the  immensity  of  the  national  domain,  and  the 
equal  immensity  of  our  patriotic  and  Christian 
obligation  to  develop  it  as  a  young  nation  with 
proper  qualities. 

Of  the  earliest  grants  in  colonial  times  a  few 
may  be  named.  In  1622  the  Great  Council  for 
New  En  "land  firanted  to  Gorges  and  Mason  all  the 


110      LANDKOLDINGS    IN   THE    UNITED   STATES. 

land  between  the  Merriinac  and  the  Kennebec,  and 
for  sixty  miles  inland  from  the  mouths  of  these 
rivers.  Some  two  years  before,  Gorges  had  the 
project  to  gain  a  tract  forty  miles  square  on  the 
Kennebec  and  Androscoggin.  The  old  Saxon  sjreed 
for  land  and  the  passion  for  speculating  in  wild 
lands  showed  early  development  in  this  country. 
Robert  Gorges,  the  son  of  Sir  Ferdinando,  gained 
a  tract  extending  from  Boston  ten  miles  toward 
Salem  ;  and  to  the  grandson  of  Sir  Ferdinando  there 
was  granted  a  tract  of  twenty-four  thousand  acres 
on  both  sides  of  York  River,  Maine,  on  the  condi- 
tion that  he  should  found  a  city  within  the  same. 
In  1629  the  land  between  the  middle  of  the  Aler- 
rimac  and  the  middle  of  the  Piscataqua,  and  for 
sixty  miles  inland,  with  all  islands  within  five 
leagues  of  the  shore,  was  given  by  this  Great 
Council  for  New  England  to  Capt.  John  Mason. 
The  famous  Waldo  patent,  originally  the  Mus- 
cogus,  being  about  thirty  miles  square,  may  also 
be  mentioned.  Within  this  grant  Portland  now 
stands.  In  1629  the  Council  granted  to  Bradford 
all  the  territory  between  Cohasset  River  and  tiie 
Narragansett,  and  inland  as  far  as  the  utmost  limits 
of  Pokenacutt. 

Nor  was  the  passion  for  wild  land  in  large  bodies 
in  those  earlier  days  free  from  "  irregularities " 
even  in  New  England.  For  in  1676  Robert  Mason 
petitioned  the  king  to  be  put  in  possession  of  lands 
granted  to  his  grandfather,  and  he  represented  that 


lANDHOLDINGS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES.       141 

the  Massachusetts  Company  "did  surreptitiously 
and  unknown  to  the  said  Council  get  the  Seal 
of  the  said  Company  affixed  to  a  grant  of  certain 
lands,"  and  so  obtained  confirmation  of  the  same 
to  themselves  under  the  Great  Seal  of  England. 
The  Massachusetts  Company,  however,  entered  a 
denial,  and  some  late  antiquarian  students  assure 
tlie  writer  that  the  Company  is  not  open  to  such 
an  accusation.^ 

An  index  to  the  policy  of  the  Massachusetts 
Colony  may  be  taken  from  its  records  December 
10,  1641:  "Mrs.  Marg*  Winthrope  hath  her  3,000 
acres  of  land  formerl}^  granted  to  her,  to  be  as- 
signed about  the  lower  end  of  Concord  Eyver,  near 
Merrimack."  ^ 

It  was  in  1669  that  John  Alexander  paid  six 
thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  for  nine  miles  of  river 
front  nearly  opposite  to  the  present  District  of 
Columbia  ;  and  soon  after  the  great-grandfather  of 
Washington  bought  seven  thousand  acres  in  and 
around  Mount  Vernon,  —  tluis  early  aiding  the 
foundation  of  the  large  Washington  estate  of  later 

CD  O 

days. 

The  acquisition  of  portions  of  Mexico,  or  New 
Spain.,  by  tiie  United  States  in  the  treaties  of  1848 
and  1853  makes  it  proper  to  notice  some  of  the 

1  History  oC  Grants,  under  the  Great  Council  for  New  Eng- 
land. By  Samuel  P.  Haven.  Lowell  Institute  Lectures,  1869. 
Published  by  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  1869,  pp.  128- 
162. 

2  See  Mass.  Records,  June  li,  1612. 


142      LANDIIOLDIXGS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

large  landlioldiiigs  tliat  tlicn  came  into  our  domain. 
By  those  treaties  the  United  States  guaranteed 
tlie  private  ownership  of  grants  from  the  previous 
Spanish  and  Mexican  Governments  tliat  could  be 
legally  established  to  the  satisfaction  and  coniir- 
mation  of  Congress. 

These  grants  in  New  Spain  were  personal  and 
private,  and  were  made  by  the  Spanish  kings  and 
Mexican  governors  to  their  favorites,  and  also  for 
purposes  of  colonization,  in  dates  running  back 
from  1846  to  the  earliest  supremacy  of  Spain  in 
the  country.  To  the  Eastern  American  whose 
life  and  travels  have  been  confined  mainly  to  his 
"  pent-up  Utica,"  the  first  knowledge  of  the  extent 
of  these  grants  is  simply  overwhelming,  and  he 
begins  at  once  to  reconstruct  his  ideas  of  spaces  in 
the  United  States.  Nor  will  this  reconstruction 
come  any  too  soon  to  those  who  intend  to  bear  a 
manly  hand  in  shaping  the  empire  of  the  future. 
For  the  interest  of  such,  we  devote  a  page  to  the 
number  and  extent,  not  exhaustive,  of  landhold- 
ings  or  grants  which  had  their  origin  in  foreign 
governments,  and  which  the  United  States  guar- 
anteed when  the  lands  in  whicli  the  grants  lay 
came  into  our  possession.  Tliey  came  within  tlie 
dominion  of  the  United  States  by  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana  and  of  Florida,  and  by  the  acquisition 
of  New  Mexico  and  California. 

In  California  "  the  United  States  has  confirmed 
five  hundred   and    thirty-eiglit   claims,  having   a 


LANDHOLDINGS   IN   THE   UNITED    STATES.       143 

total  acreage  of  8,332,431  acres, —  tlie  smallest 
being  one  acre  and  seventy-seven  one  hundred tlis. 
and  tlie  largest  133,440  acres."  ^  These  confirmed 
claims  equal  one  and  three  fifths  States  as  large  as 
Massachusetts.  The  claims  in  Florida  amount  to 
about  1,300,000  acres,  only  a  few  of  which  have 
been  patented.  In  Louisiana  about  ten  thousand 
claims  have  been  confirmed,  but  not  one  in  ten  has 
yet  been  patented.  While  the  commissioners  may 
"  confirm  "  the  claim,  the  "  patent "  or  absolute 
title  must  come  from  Congress,  and  it  by  no  means 
grants  a  patent  to  all  lands  when  the  commis- 
sioners have  "  confirmed  "  the  claims.  To  June  30, 
1883,  twelve  claims  had  been  reported  to  Congress 
from  Arizona,  aggregating  188,179  acres.  At  the 
same  date  twenty-five  claims,  equalling  1,913,301 
acres,  had  been  confirmed  in  New  Mexico  and 
Colorado. 

These  claims  continue  to  come  in,  as  Congress 
did  not  limit  the  time  of  their  presentation,  and 
the  officials  say  that  "  no  one  can  estimate  the 
number  of  private  land-claims  yet  to  be  filed,"  — 
it  may  be  one  thousand  or  it  may  be  five  thousand. 
They  urge  upon  Government  the  necessity  of  lim- 
iting tlie  time  in  which  clainis  may  be  presented, 
to  head  off  the  modern  manufacture  of  ancient 
titles.  The  forgeries  have  been  very  many,  and 
these,  with  other  irregularities,  liave  opened  tliose 

1  The  Public  Domain.  By  Thomas  Donaldson.  Washing- 
ton, Govevnment  Printing  Office.     1884.     p.  381. 


lU      LANDIIOLDINGS    IN    THE   UNITED    STATES. 

old  Spanish  regions  to  the  inavandiii;^  of  land- 
thieves  on  the  most  extravagant  scale.  The  Com- 
missioner of  the  General  Laud  Office,  in  his  Eeport 
for  1883,  furnislies  an  illustrative  case :  "  An  in- 
stance has  been  called  to  my  attention  where  the 
original  claim  was  for  a  quautity  of  land  shown 
upon  a  plat  presented  to  the  Surveyor-General  as 
containing  one  square  league,  or  less  than  five 
thousand  acres,  and  described  as  having  fixed 
natural  boundaries,  which  claimants  stated  were 
well  known  and  easily  identified.  And  yet,  upon 
the  assignment  of  tliis  claim  to  other  parties,  a  pre- 
liminary survey  was  obtained,  purporting  to  show 
identically  the  same  boundaries,  but  embracing  an 
area  exceeding  three  hundred  thousand  acres."  ^ 

There  has  been  much  lively  work  over  doubtful 
papers  and  witnesses,  before  the  congressional 
committees  on  claims  under  the  treaties,  to  estab- 
lish rights  to  these  grants.  In  1880  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior  reported  :  "  After  a  lapse  of  nearly 
thirty  years,  more  than  one  thousand  claims  have 
been  filed  with  the  Surveyors-General,  of  which 
less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  have  been  reported 
to  Congress ;  and  of  the  number  so  reported  Con- 
gress has  finally  acted  upon  only  seventy-one." 

This  appears  to  show  the  condition  of  things  in 
New  Mexico.  Very  likely  many  more  claimants 
are  waiting  till  "  available  "  men  may  be  offered  to 
pass  on  them.     Meanwhile  the  unconfirmed  grants 

1  Tlie  Public  Domain,  p.  11.^6. 


LANDHOLDINGS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.   145 

are  in  the  market  by  the  tens  of  thousands  of  acres 
at  three  cents  and  upward  per  acre. 

The  pressures  and  dangers  attending  these  duties 
are  not  so  great  as  at  first.  Prior  to  1860  the 
Commission  labored  under  the  mistake  that  the 
confirmation  of  an  offered  title  would  carry  with 
,  it  all  mineral  in  the  land.  It  was  then  discovered 
that  the  Spanish  and  Mexican  authorities  made 
special  reservation  to  the  Government  of  all  the 
precious  metals,  and  that  therefore  all  title  to  them 
vested  in  the  United  States  after  the  treaties,  and 
not  in  the  grantees  and  their  heirs.  This  mistake 
of  the  Commission  is  not  so  surprising  when  we 
consider  how  distant  and  difficult  of  access  New 
Mexico  was.  David  Douglass,  scientific  explorer 
in  the  northwest  of  America,  1824-34,  says  in  his 
narrative :  "  The  caravan,  which  leaves  St.  Louis, 
on  the  Missouri,  about  the  end  of  May  next,  will 
reach  Santa  F^  in  about  sixty-five  days."  This 
time  was  reduced  slowly ;  for  the  first  locomotive 
reached  the  Mississippi  at  Eock  Island  in  1854, 
and  St.  Louis  in  1857,  and  St.  Joseph  (on  the  Mis- 
souri) in  1859,  and  Santa  F^  in  1880.  In  those 
days  American  recreating  travel  was  mostly  abroad, 
and  "  the  bounds  to  a  new  empire,"  as  Washington 
prophetically  spoke  of  our  interior  in  1783,  were 
not  much  passed  and  studied  till  the  railroads 
made  it  comparatively  easy.  It  is  now  but  a 
decade  of  years,  as  the  writer  knows,  when  he  was 
regarded  as  singular  and  daring  who  ran  a  few 
10 


1-iG      LANDHOLDINGS   IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

thousand  miles  up  and  down  a  log-cabined  and 
mining  and  Indian  interior,  and  he  had  much  of 
the  new  and  strange  to  tell  on  his  return.  Now, 
with  frequent  and  large  and  charming  "excursions," 
there  is  more  hope  for  the  "  new  empire." 

It  may  not  be  considered  as  wandering  from  our 
historical  line  of  large  landholdings,  to  mention  here 
the  twenty-one  Franciscan  Missions  on  the  coast 
of  California.  The  first  was  planted  in  17G9  and 
the  last  in  1823.  They  were  established  on  grants 
from  the  Spanish  Crown,  and  embraced  the  entire 
coast  from  San  Diego  to  San  Francisco,  about  five 
hundred  miles,  and  extended  inward  forty  miles, 
and  their  average  area  was  about  six  hundred 
thousand  acres.  While  planted  ostensibly  for 
Christianizing  the  Indians,  these  Missions  made 
almost  slaves  of  them  while  they  seemed  to  be 
evangelizing  them ;  and  the  San  Francisco  Mis- 
sion in  1825  owned  seventy-six  thousand  head 
of  cattle,  seventy-nine  thousand  sheep,  and  three 
thousand  horses,  while  their  red  and  white  wines 
were  of  high  repute.  Of  these,  the  Mission  of 
San  Gabriel  produced  annually  from  four  to  six 
hundred  barrels.  These  ranch  Missions  had  at  one 
time  18,683  Indians  under  their  control,  and  used 
them  as  servants  and  workmen.  In  1821  Mexico 
assumed  independence  of  Spain,  and  as  the  Mis- 
sion policy  for  California  failed  to  either  civilize 
or  Christianize  the  natives,  the  Missions  began  to 
be  broken  up  by  Government  in  1826. 


LANDHOLDINGS   IN    THE    UNITED    STATES.       147 

This  reference  to  large  land-grants  in  California 
should  not  omit  a  vast  one  projected  and  well- 
nigh  secured.  During  the  two  or  three  lively 
years  before  that  Pacific  territory  became  a  part 
of  the  United  States,  the  English  were  ambitious 
and  scheming  for  it.  The  English  consul,  Forbes, 
contracted  with  one  Macnamara,  an  Irish  priest,  to 
colonize  California,  overthrow  the  Mexican  Gov- 
ernment, and  then  put  it  under  an  English  pro- 
tectorate. For  this  work  the  priest  was  to  receive 
three  thousand  square  leagues  in  the  Sacramento 
and  San  Joaquin  valleys,  —  more  than  thirteen 
millions  of  acres.  Governor  Pico  and  General 
Castro,  the  civil  and  military  heads  of  the  prov- 
ince, were  in  the  plot,  and  the  papers  were  drawn, 
but  not  executed.  This  was  in  1846.  The  papers 
fell  into  the  hands  of  Frdmont  in  the  spring  of  that 
year,  and  the  splendid  lands  into  the  hands  of  the 
United  States  soon  afterward. 

The  allusion  to  one  other  Spanish  grant  should 
not  be  omitted,  for  it  sustains  interesting  relations 
to  the  United  States.  In  1786  Julien  Dubuque, 
an  energetic  Canadian,  explored  the  lead-mine 
regions  of  the  Upper  Mississippi.  Two  years  after- 
ward he  returned  and  purchased  of  the  Indians, 
in  council,  about  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
acres,  on  which  Dubuque  now  stands,  and  in  1796 
the  Baron  de  Carondelet,  Spanish  Governor  of  the 
Upper  Louisiana,  conveyed  the  same  substantially 
to  Dubuque,  and   the  king  confirmed  the  grant. 


148      LANDIIOLDINGS   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

It  embraced  nominally  three  leagues  on  the  river 
and  six  into  tlie  interior;  and  it  was  the  gift  of  a 
Spanish  king  to  a  French  subject. 

By  partnership  in  purchase  the  property  came 
to  be  known  as  the  Dubuque-Chouteau  claim,  and 
the  fee  simple  was  declared,  only  twenty  years  ago, 
to  vest  in  the  United  States,  since  the  king  origi- 
nally, and  the  baron  following  him,  had  granted 
only  a  right  to  hunt  and  work  minerals  on  the 
claim,  so  called. 

In  the  ambitious  and  good  policy  of  France  to 
acquire  and  hold  the  Lower  Mississippi  Valley, 
immigration  was  encouraged  to  it  by  fascinating 
grants  of  land.  Industrious,  enterprising,  and  in- 
fluential men  received  offers  of  large  tracts  of  land 
in  the  bottoms  of  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributa- 
ries. The  largest  of  these  were  on  the  main  river 
and  within  three  hundred  miles  of  New  Orleans, 
and  others  were  on  the  Red  and  the  Wichita, 
the  Yazoo  and  the  Arkansas.  In  his  "History 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley"  Monette  specifies  fif- 
teen of  these  grants  with  the  conditions  annexed.^ 
Leading  among  the  grantees  was  the  Scotchman 
John  Law,  author  and  finisher  of  the  Mississippi 
Bubble,  —  a  paper-money  inflation,  1718-23.  His 
grant  was  twelve  miles  square  on  the  Arkan- 
sas. Law  stipulated  to  colonize  the  Arkansas 
with  fifteen  hundred  emigrants  from  Provence, 
in  France,  and  to  keep  up  a  sufficient  military 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  220  et  seq. 


LANDHOLDIXGS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.   149 

force  for  their  protection  against  Indian  lios- 
tility."  Daring  the  six  speculative  years  of  Law 
he  introduced  into  Louisiana  4,044  settlers,  1,441 
African  slaves,  —  the  first  introduction  of  slaves 
to  the  lower  Mississippi,  —  one  hundred  and  fifty 
galley  slaves,  and  several  hundred  females  of  ill 
repute.  The  bubble  burst  in  1723,  and  the  first 
slave  insurrection  in  this  country  occurred  six 
years  afterward.^ 

The  curious,  who  may  wish  to  know  the  details 
in  this  early  American  land  fever,  will  find  many 
illustrative  cases  in  Martin's  "  Louisiana."  ^ 

In  these  schemes  to  gain  and  hold  the  Great 
Valley  the  French  Government  imitated  the  Span- 
ish in  the  grants  already  named.  The  English 
Crown  followed  the  French  in  the  policy  of  be- 
stowing on  royal  favorites  immense  tracts  of  wild 
land  in  the  New  World.  In  1748  the  Crown 
granted  to  the  Ohio  Company  six  hundred  thou- 
sand acres,  with  the  coming  Pittsburg  for  a  central 
post,  as  a  semi-military  advance  force  to  crowd  the 
French  to  a  farther  West.  This  was  accomplished 
in  1758,  when  the  French  retreated  and  built  Fort 
Massac,  on  the  Ohio,  forty  miles  above  its  mouth,  — 
the  last  stronghold  built  by  France  east  of  the 
IVIississippi.  The  same  year  the  English  rebuilt 
Fort  Duquesne,  burned  by  the  French,  and  called 
it  Fort  Pitt. 

^  Monette,  vol.  i.  p.  220  et  scq. 
2  Vol.  i.  p.  202  et  circ. 


150      LANDHOLDINGS    IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

Afterward,  yet  prior  to  1757,  and  with  the 
approbation  of  the  Crown,  the  provincial  govern- 
ment issued  script  and  military  warrants  to  the 
amount  of  tliree  million  acres,  on  and  about  the 
headwaters  of  the  Ohio.  The  grant  to  the  Ohio 
Company  was  only  one  of  many,  some  being  earlier 
and  some  later. 

The  liberal  disposition  of  the  public  lands  was 
manifested  in  the  colonial  legislature  of  Virginia 
in  1770  and  following,  as  already  mentioned.  In 
1787  the  Ohio  Land  Company,  a  new  company, 
obtained  from  Congress  grants  of  wild  land  ag- 
gregating nearly  five  million  acres.  In  this  the 
company  acted  also  as  agent  for  other  organiza- 
tions, and  finally  retained  as  its  own  964,285  acres. 
In  the  following  year  John  Cleaves  Symmes,  of 
New  Jersey,  purchased  of  the  Government  six 
hundred  thousand  acres,  as  before  mentioned. 

Near  the  close  of  the  last  century  William  Bing- 
ham, banker,  of  Philadelphia,  became  by  two  pur- 
chases one  of  the  heaviest  landholders  in  the 
United  States.  At  the  close  of  the  Eevolution, 
when  the  finances  of  the  country  were  in  a  desper- 
ate condition,  and  the  hardy  soldiers  had  been  paid 
off  in  paper,  of  which  sometimes  one  silver  dollar 
would  buy  two  hundred,  Governor  Hancock,  of 
Massachusetts,  suggested  that  State  lands  in  the 
Province  of  Maine  be  sold  to  pay  the  State  war 
debts.  The  legislature  instituted  a  lottery  by 
which   to  dispose  of  fifty  townships  beyond  the 


LAXDHOLDIXGS   IN    THE   UNITED    STATES.      151 

Penobscot,  at  fifty  cents  an  acre.  The  scheme 
was  not  popular.  The  total  of  land  offered  was 
1,270,670  acres,  of  which  only  105,280  acres  were 
drawn.  This  was  in  October,  1787.  Mr.  Bingham 
took  the  balance,  and  afterward  bought  in  the 
most  of  what  was  drawn.  Some  little  time  after- 
ward General  Knox,  one  of  the  staff  of  General 
Washington,  contracted  for  about  a  million  acres 
—  forty-three  townsliips  —  on  the  upper  waters 
of  the  Kennebec,  and  in  1793,  by  the  consent  of 
Massachusetts,  he  transferred  this  contract  to  Mr. 
Bingham.  About  two  and  a  half  million  acres  of 
Maine  lands  thus  came  into  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Bingham,  for  which  he  paid  cash  down,  $311,250. 
The  average  cost  per  acre  for  these  ninety-three 
townships  was  twelve  and  a  half  cents.  To  develop 
tlie  Province  and  guard  against  speculation,  the 
State  provided  that  no  title  should  be  conveyed 
for  any  township,  even  though  paid  for,  till  it  was 
occupied  by  forty  settlers.  This  general  policy 
governed  Bingham  and  all  other  purchasers.  The 
sales  by  Mr.  Bingliam,  who  died  in  1800,  and  by 
his  agent,  Col.  John  Black,  were  slow.  For  the 
first  thirty-five  years  there  was  not  enough  of 
the  Kennebec  lands  sold  to  pay  the  taxes.  Of 
the  lottery  tract,  enough  land  and  timber  were  sold 
during  that  time  to  meet  taxes  and  expenses. 
At  the  end  of  forty-two  years  from  the  purchase 
enough  had  been  sold  to  cover  the  purchase- 
money,  interest,  taxes,  and  expenses.     In  1828  a 


152      LANDHOLDINGS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

few  townships  were  sold  at  auction  at  seventy-five 
and  seventy -six  cents  an  acre.  Then  the  "  Eastern 
land  fever "  was  created,  and  timber-lands  were 
sold  and  resold  till  they  reached  the  wild  price  of 
eight  and  even  ten  dollars  an  acre,  and  the  Missis- 
sippi Bubble  was  repeated  in  the  Kennebec  and 
Penobscot  bubbles. 

A  fact  foreign  to  our  main  thought  will  interest 
the  curious.  Two  of  Mr.  Bingham's  five  daugh- 
ters married  two  of  the  Baring  brothers,  English 
bankers.  One  of  these  gentlemen  was  William, 
afterward  Lord  Ashburton,  wlio  lias  gained  an 
eminence  in  American  liistory,  in  the  Webster- 
Ashburton  Treaty,  by  which  our  international 
boundary  was  settled  from  the  St.  Croix  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  "When,  therefore,  William  Bar- 
ing, in  1842,  was  determining  the  eastern  section 
of  that  boundary,  he  was  well-nigh  at  home,  if  not 
actually  on  lands  liis  own  by  marriage.^ 

In  our  earlier  days  there  were  bold  movements 
and  manoeuvres  and  seizures,  under  cover  of  law,  to 
take  large  portions  of  the  public  wild  domain,  even 
as  sometimes  to-day.  Georgia  claimed  south  on 
latitude  31°,  west  to  the  Mississippi,  which  was, 
indeed,  the  treaty  line  between  the  United  States 
and  the  Spanish  possessions.  But  between  the 
western  boundary  of  the  State  of  Georgia  and  the 

'  Collections  Maine  Historical  Society,  1876,  vol.  vii.  pp. 
353-360;  Williamson's  History  of  Maine,  vol.  ii.  p.  531 ;  Varney's 
Gazetteer;  Greenleafs  Geography  of  Maine. 


LANDHOLDINGS   IN    THE    UNITED   STATES.       153 

Mississippi  was  a  large  territory  extending  north 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo  and  occupied  by  about 
ten  thousand  Spanish  subjects.  In  disregard  of 
treaty  Spain  claimed  this,  as  did  also  Georgia  in 
disregard  of  her  western  State  limit.  The  Spanish 
authorities  refused  to  yield  the  territory  in  ques- 
tion, and  even  forbade  immigration  into  it  from 
the  States.  The  question  lingered  with  multiply- 
ing perplexities  from  1785  till  1795,  when  tlie 
Georgia  legislature  incorporated  the  Mississippi 
Company  to  take  and  hold  these  lands,  now  for 
ten  years  organized  into  Bourbon  County.  The 
charter  gave  the  company  more  than  three  million 
acres  of  wild  land,  while  about  four  million  more 
•were  involved  in  the  intrigue.  The  year  following, 
the  legislature  declared  the  charter  forfeit,  as  ob- 
tained by  corruption,  and  Congress  set  it  aside  as 
covering  United  States  lands,  over  which  the  State 
had  no  control.  The  extent  of  the  grasp  and  the 
fraud  were  not  inferior  to  the  endeavors  of  some 
rings  of  to-day. 

The  same  year  in  which  this  Georgia  scheme 
was  matured,  a  sharp  one  was  put  in  operation  in 
Virginia.  Pittsburg  was  now  about  one  year  old 
by  incorporation,  with  its  one  thousand  inhabi- 
tants, when  General  Wayne's  great  victory  on  the 
Mauraee  over  the  Indians,  with  their  English  allies, 
opened  up  the  frontier  beyond  the  Alleghany  to 
safe  settlements.  Of  course  it  was  in  the  inter- 
est  of  the  Government    to    have   hardy  pioneers 


154      LANDH0LD1XC;S   IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

take  possession,  and  Virginia  offered  strong  temp- 
tations  to   buth    capitalists   and   poor  men.       To 
a  strong  association   of  the   former,  entitled  the 
"  Population  Company,"  she  granted  large  tracts 
of  wild  land,  on  the  condition  that  within  a  given 
time  the  company  should  locate,  on  any  section  of 
four  hundred  acres  within  the  grant,  an  immigrant 
who  should  make  and   hold  improvements  to  a 
certain  extent.    Then  the  company  offered  to  war- 
rantee one  hundred  and  fifty  acres  to  any  settler 
who  would  meet  tliese  conditions,  and,  for  success- 
ful labor  in  this  line,  it  would  gain  two  hundred 
and  fifty  acres  in  each  case.     When  the  "  Western 
fever"  was  running  so  high  that  it  would  require 
more  effort  to  hold  men  back  than  to  point  tliem 
to  the  front,  this  shrewd  speculation,  incorporated 
and  empowered  by  a  well-lobbied  legislature,  was 
becoming  a  great  success.     Soon  after  the  people 
saw  through  the  policy  of  the  company,  who  were 
speculating  on  the  gift-lands  of  the  Government, 
when  tlie  leijislature  offered  the  four  hundred  acres 
direct  to  any  settler  who  would  meet  the  pre- 
vious conditions.     Then  this  Population  Company 
of  land   speculators  complained  that  its  "  vested 
rights  "  were  infringed.     But  the  people  had  their 
way,  to  an  extent.     Some  incautiously  pre-empted 
on   the   company  grants ;  cases  came  into  court, 
when  the  poor  cabin  settler  stood  no  chance  with 
a  rich  corporation  ;  ejectments  and  evictions  fol- 
lowed, patterned  from  the  Ireland  and    Scotland 


LANDHOLDINGS   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES.      155 

of  that  day,  till,  harassed  with  expensive  litigation, 
they  threw  up  all  claims  and  improvements,  and 
moved  farther  west  into  the  Connecticut  Eeserve, 
where  no  lands  were  given  away,  and  titles  were 
guaranteed  to  purchasers.  Large  land  sales  for 
the  development  of  a  new  country  are  not  neces- 
sarily and  totally  advantageous  to  the  interests  of 
the  people. 

The  grants  of  public  lands  by  the  United  States 
for  canals,  highways,  and  railroads  must  impress 
the  most  careless  with  the  magnitude  of  the  pub- 
lic domain,  and  its  wonderful  development.  A 
statement  of  the  vast  areas  thus  granted  by  the 
Government  for  public  good  might  reasonably  be 
discredited  in  any  one  of  the  twenty  realms  of 
Europe,  Eussia  excepted.  For,  to  encourage  the 
American  people,  in  private  corporations,  to  open 
up  ways  of  travel  on  whicli  they  may  go  about  the 
country  and  attend  to  their  business,  the  Govern- 
ment has  granted  public  lands  to  more  than  double 
the  area  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  or  eight 
times  the  area  of  Scotland.  Washington  practi- 
cally inaugurated  our  system  of  internal  improve- 
ments before  he  had  sheathed  the  sword  of  the 
Ee volution.  While  the  army  lay  on  their  arms 
at  Newburgli,  awaiting  the  details  of  peace,  he, 
with  Gov.  George  Clinton,  made  what  proved 
to  be  the  first  reconnoissance  for  the  Erie  Canal. 
After  Independence  was  conceded,  Washington 
made  his  seventh  trip  over  the  mountains,  gratify- 


15G      LANDIIOLDINGS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

ing  to  au  extent  what  he  said  after  the  expedition 
with  Governor  Clinton :  "  I  shall  not  rest  con- 
tented till  I  have  explored  the  western  country,  and 
traversed  those  lines,  or  a  great  part  of  them,  which 
have  given  bounds  to  a  new  empire."  ^  Yet  many 
American  travellers  make  their  seventh  trip  to 
Europe  before  they  have  made  their  first  to  "  ex- 
plore the  western  country  and  the  bounds  of  a 
new  empire."  These  excursions  of  Washington 
initiated  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  liailroad,  and 
indeeil  the  great  system  of  internal  improvement 
which  has  since  so  developed  the  country. 

On  this  branch  of  our  general  topic,  in  showing 
where  and  what  the  West  is,  details  would  be 
impossible  if  not  useless.  Summaries  must  suffice. 
One  of  the  severest  civil  and  political  struggles 
of  the  Government  opened  in  1803,  on  the  ques- 
tion to  what  extent  the  general  Government  should 
aid  in  opening  in  the  new  country  highways  for 
travel  and  commerce.  The  first  grant  of  wild  land 
had  been  made  the  previous  year  in  favor  of  Ohio 
for  public  roads,  and  the  first  for  a  canal  was  in 
favor  of  Indiana  in  1824.  From  that  date  to 
June  30,  1883,  Government  has  granted  and  pa- 
tented for  canal  purposes  4,424,073  acres ;  to  the 
same  date  for  wagon  roads,  1,741,897  acres ;  to 
railroads,  47,004,043  acres,  making  a  total  of 
53,170,013  acres.  Tliis  amount  of  public  land, 
that  has  been  thus  donated  and  passed  over  into 

^  Irving's  Washington,  vol.  vi.  pp.  432-434,  455-459. 


LA.NDH0LD1NGS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES.       157 

private  companies,  is  equal  to  all  New  England, 
and  two  States  as  large  as  Massachusetts  addi- 
tional. The  breadth  and  vastness  of  the  national 
domain,  and  the  very  extensive  and  rapid  develop- 
ment of  it,  must  impress  one  who  entertains  even 
for  a  few  moments  these  offers  and  conveyances  of 
wild  land. 

A  few  cases  in  contrast  will  show  how  the  pub- 
lic land  policy  has  expanded  as  the  people  have 
come  to  comprehend  the  magnitude  of  our  domain. 
In  1835  Congress  granted  to  a  Florida  company 
for  a  railroad  a  right  of  way  through  the  public 
lands,  thirty  feet  on  each  side  of  its  line,  with  use 
of  timber  three  hundred  feet  on  each  side,  and  ten 
acres  for  the  terminus.  The  next  year  Congress 
granted  to  the  New  Orleans  and  Nashville  Eailroad 
Company  five  acres  together  for  each  necessary 
depot,  water  station,  and  workshop,  and  the  grants 
must  be  located  at  least  fifteen  miles  apart.  In 
1862  Congress  incorporated  the  Union  and  Central 
Pacific  Railroads  to  run  from  the  Missouri  River 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  about  two  thousand  miles, 
and  for  depots,  shops,  and  aid  in  construction  the 
road  was  to  have  every  alternate  square  mile,  for 
five  miles  deep,  on  each  side  of  the  road.  This 
would  secure  the  donation  of  land  equal  to  a  strip 
five  miles  wide  from  the  Missouri  to  the  Pacific. 
In  1864  the  Northern  Pacific  was  chartered  to  run 
from  Lake  Superior  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  about 
two  thousand  miles.     The  grant  of  land  was  equal 


158      LANDHOLDINGS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

to  a  belt  ten  miles  wide,  where  the  road  should 
run  through  a  State,  and  twenty  miles  wide  in  a 
Territory,  —  about  forty-two  million  acres,  —  and 
equal  to  llhode  Island,  Connecticut,  and  seven 
States  like  Massachusetts.  It  is  true  the  road 
failed  to  secure  so  much  land  by  failing  to  fill  the 
conditions ;  but  the  immensity  of  the  grant  is  tlie 
same,  suggestive  of  the  immensity  of  the  public 
domain. 

As  the  settlements  have  made  growth  into  our 
wild  country,  different  business  interests  have 
often  had  each  a  movement  of  its  own,  and  enough 
to  constitute  a  special  population  for  a  given  belt 
and  time.  At  first  the  fur  trade  led  the  advance 
of  white  men,  yet  only  here  and  there,  as  wild 
animals  and  Indian  hunters  offered  gain.  An  agri- 
cultural front  showed  itself  everywhere,  pioneering 
and  supporting,  as  it  does,  all  the  other  industries 
of  civilization.  In  some  sections  the  lumber-mills, 
with  a  peculiar  class  of  people,  moved  solidly  into 
the  timbered  sections  and  devoured  the  forests  by 
thousands  of  acres.  The  coal  mountains  took  to 
themselves  a  population  unlike  any  other,  and  in 
1848  the  precious  metals  gathered  adventurers  from 
the  whole  world,  who  ignored  a  border  by  substi- 
tuting the  interior  for  it,  and  dropped  towns  and 
cities  on  the  mountains  and  in  the  canons,  with 
the  hurry  and  random  of  the  wind  when  it  is 
sowing  wild  seed. 

The  last  great  interest  that  has  orsanized  and 


LANDHOLDIXGS   IN   THE    UXITED    STATES.       159 

manifested  itself,  as  not  only  continental  but  inter- 
national, is  ranciiing,  stock-raising.  Wild  lands, 
not  yet  fringed  with  lone  cabins  and  settlements, 
and  stretching  every  way  to  the  horizon,  with 
the  amplitude  of  the  ocean,  men  have  taken  for 
grazing  purposes.  At  first  these  great  American 
pastures  were  as  free  to  the  herder  as  the  rivers 
which  watered  them.  Some  hint  had  been  given 
toward  this  industry  by  the  immense  ranches  of 
California  and  South  America  that  earned  fortunes 
to  the  owners  in  hides  and  tallow  only.  No  one 
gains  a  tolerable  idea  of  the  amplitude  of  our  do- 
main, and  of  the  leading  interests  that  employ  and 
feed  seventy  millions  of  people  in  it,  who  has  not 
received  quite  an  amount  of  compact  information 
on  ranching  in  the  United  States,  and  bestowed 
some  close  considerations  on  it.  It  is  designed 
now  to  call  attention  to  enough  of  these  ranches 
here  and  there  to  impress  the  reader  with  the 
vastness  of  a  country  where  men  can  turn  loose 
for  grazing  ten  thousand,  fifty  thousand,  and  even 
one  hundred  thousand  head  of  stock  in  single 
pastures.  Of  course  the  figures  must  be  given  in 
a  round  way,  since  there  is  no  official  State  or 
National  enumeration  of  the  acres  and  tlie  animals 
in  these  vast  estates.  Sample  cases  will  be  taken 
miscellaneously,  and  only -enough  to  illustrate  the 
point  in  hand.^ 

^  The  terms  "  range,"  "  ranch,"  and  "  farm  "  are  used  in  the 
new  country  with  this  discrimination :   The  range  is  a  large  tract 


IGO      LANDllOLDIXGS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

In  April,  1883,  a  Scotchman  opened  a  ranch  of 
forty-eight  square  miles  —  about  thirty  thousand 
acres  —  eiglity  miles  west  of  Topeka,  Kansas. 
Seventy  miles  of  wire  fencing  were  soon  com- 
pleted, a  part  of  which  enclosed  a  five  hundred- 
acre  lot  for  hogs.  At  the  end  of  the  first  year  the 
ranch  had  twenty-five  thousand  head  of  cattle, 
six  hundred  hogs,  and  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  yearling  and  colt  mules.  At  that  time  there 
had  been  expended  $100,000  for  land,  $100,000 
for  stock,  and  $25,000  for  improvements. 

In  1884  there  went  into  operation  a  contract  for 
grazinij  between  three  and  four  million  acres  of 
wild  land  west  of  the  Arkansas,  in  the  Cheyenne 
and  Arrapahoe  reservation.  It  was  leased  by 
the  Indians  to  a  company  of  stock-raisers  for  five 
years,  on  an  annuity  of  $100,000,  one  half  cash 
and  one  half  live-stock.  This  is  fine  grazing- 
land,  and  had  long  been  coveted  by  the  border 
whites.  The  Indians,  no  doubt,  were  expected 
soon  to  make  trouble,  when  the  Government 
would  remove   them,  and    the   land   would   pass 

of  wild  land  used  but  not  owned  by  individuals  or  companies 
but  by  the  United  States,  for  stock-raising  ;  the  ranch  is  a  large 
tract  of  country  owned  and  used  by  one  or  more  persons,  usu- 
ally for  grazing  ;  the  farm  is  a  small  ranch,  and  more  or  less 
under  cultivation.  The  writer  lacks  data  to  affirm  that  the 
term  "  ranch,"  as  here  used;  implies  in  every  case  personal 
ownership.  In  estimating  the  extent  of  these  ranges  and 
ranches,  it  will  be  of  aid  to  remember  that  the  average  town- 
ship of  Massachusetts  is  about  15,000  acres,  and  the  perfect 
Government  town.ship  of  the  West  is  23,040  acres. 


LANDHOLDIXGS   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES.      161 

throngii  a  nominal  market  into  ranch  rings  of 
white  men.  The  cattle  pasture  in  question  is 
about  seven  hundred  square  miles  larger  than 
Connecticut. 

There  is  a  range  in  Wyoming,  called  t])e  Lake 
Voorhees  cattle-range,  embracing  about  a  million 
of  acres,  forty  thousand  of  which  are  enclosed  by  a 
sinole  wire  fence.  This  range  would  embrace  about 
sixty  of  the  average  townships  of  Massachusetts. 

Some  years  since  a  ranchman  by  the  name 
of  Rabb,  living  near  Corpus  Christi,  Texas,  died 
and  left  to  his  widow  about  forty  thousand  head 
of  cattle.  She  has  distinguished  herself  by  her 
good  management  of  the  herd,  and  has  acquired 
tlie  title  of  the  cattle-queen  of  Texas.  Of  good 
physique,  plain  habits,  fond  of  the  saddle  and 
outdoor  life,  and  now  the  wife  of  a  Methodist 
clergyman,  Mrs.  Rogers  herds  her  forty  thousand 
cattle  on  her  two  hundred  thousand  acres,  in  her 
own  name  and  by  her  own  management.  When 
the  widower,  with  seven  children,  married  the 
widow  and  the  herd,  his  health  failed  him  as  a 
clergyman,  and  he  was  obliged  to  quit  preaching. 
Such  cases  are  not  uncommon,  and  should  be  a 
warning  to  unmarried  and  healthy  ministers.  He 
was  unable  for  some  reasons  to  take  charge  of  the 
ranch,  and  fell  off  into  politics  and  the  legislature. 

Texas  is  supposed  to  have  the  lai-gest  stock 
ranches  in  the  United  States,  and  probably  the 
best  in  the  world.     Leading  among  them  all  is  the 

11 


162      LANDHOLDINGS   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

cattle  ranch  of  Charles  Goodwright,  on  tlie  head  of 
Red  River,  It  contains  seven  hundred  thousand 
acres ;  Rhode  Island  has  eight  hundred  thousand 
acres.  In  1883  it  had  sixty  thousand  liead  of  cattle, 
but  will  carry  one  liundred  thousand.  Though 
purchased  within  tlie  last  four  years,  it  has  two 
hundred  and  iilty  miles  of  barbed  wire  fence.  It 
has  naturally  the  best  grass  and  water  and  shelter. 
The  stock  is  made  up  of  the  best  foreign  bloods  for 
beef,  and  ranges  high  in  the  market  for  the  table 
and  for  stocking  other  ranches.  The  purchase  price 
of  the  land  ranged  from  fifty  cents  to  one  dollar  an 
acre,  and  the  money  was  advanced  by  the  partner 
of  Goodwright,  a  Dublin  millionnaire,  who  leaves 
Ireland  annually  to  look  after  his  American  beef. 
In  1873  Goodwright  was  a  heavy  and  speculating 
banker  in  Colorado,  and  in  1876  a  bankrupt.  In 
his  best  days  he  prudently  endowed  his  wife  with 
a  herd  of  cattle,  which  after  his  failure  he  drove 
into  this  then  wild  and  free  land  of  Texas,  and  so 
recovered  his  fortune.  ^ 

While  Mr.  Goodwright  is  said  to  have  the  best 
administered  ranch  in  America,  Richard  King 
carries  the  palm  for  more  acres  and  animals.  His 
huge  pasture  lands  are  in  two  divisions  fifty  miles 
apart.  Bordering  on  the  Gulf  coast  of  Texas  he 
holds  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  acres,  while 
in  his  inland  tract  are  six  hundred  thousand.  Re- 
ports vary  as  to  his  amount  of  stock,  for  lie  does 
not  know  himself,  and  the  assessors  tax  him  at  a 


LANDHOLDIXGS    IN    THE   UNITED    STATES.       163 

guess.  A  receut  estimate  gives  him  from  seventy- 
five  thousaud  to  one  hundred  thousand  cattle, 
thirty  thousand  sheep,  and  twenty  thousand  horses. 
His  annual  sales  are  about  twenty  thousand  head 
of  beef  steers,  three  thousand  to  four  thousand 
horses,  and  as  many  sheep.  His  income  is  about 
half  a  million.  He  entertains  in  a  princely  way 
in  his  village  of  neat  cottages  around  his  own 
lordly  residence, —  Santa  Gertrude,  — and  princes 
and  dukes  are  said  to  have  been  numbered  among 
his  guests. 

Other  ranches  for  cattle  might  be  named,  as 
Kennedy's,  near  Corpus  Christi,  nine  miles  front 
on  the  bay,  and  extending  forty-five  miles  into  the 
interior.  His  large  and  original  ranch  he  sold, 
before  buying  this  small  one,  to  a  Dundee  — 
Scotch  —  company  for  $2,500,000.  There  are  also 
the  ranch  of  Miller  and  Lux  in  California,  where 
six  hundred  men  are  employed  to  take  care  of 
ninety-five  thousand  head  of  cattle  and  one  hun- 
dred and  ten  thousand  sheep,  and  the  two  ranches 
of  Irvine  in  Los  Angeles  County,  twenty-two  miles 
by  nine  in  joint  extent. 

An  extract  here  and  there  from  private  letters 
will  give  wider  information  on  tliis  point.  A 
friend  in  Kansas,  on  the  borders  of  the  Indian 
Territory,  writing  of  ranches,  says :  "  Ours,  which 
is  a  small  one,  has  twelve  miles  of  river  front  on 
both  sides  of  the  river.  Lee  and  Scott  have  about 
forty  miles  on  the   Canadian.   .    .    .    Towers  and 


1G4      LANDHOLDINGS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

Gudgell,  on  the  Beaver  and  Cinnamon  rivers,  have 
also  forty  or  mure  miles.  .  .  .  There  are  several 
other  quite  large  ranges  in  this  vicinity."  A  party 
in  the  Southwest,  answering  certain  questions  on 
our  general  theme,  has  this  compreiiensive  passage 
in  the  reply  :  — 

"  So  far  as  our  acquaintance  goes,  the  largest 
landholders  in  the  United  States  are  the  Maxwell 
Land  Grant  Company,  1,800,000  acres  in  New 
Mexico ;  the  Matador  Cattle  Company  have  about 
600,000  acres  in  Texas ;  the  Texas  Land  and 
Cattle  Company,  about  400,000  acres  in  Texas ; 
the  Prairie  Cattle  Company  about  150,000  acres 
in  Texas  and  New  Mexico ;  Mr.  J.  G.  Adair,  of 
Ireland,  about  400,000  acres  in  Texas  ;  the  Swan 
Lake  and  Cattle  Company,  about  250,000  acres  in 
"Wyoming;  the  Hansford  Land  and  Cattle  Com- 
pany, about  110,000  acres  in  Texas;  the  Western 
Land  and  Cattle  Company,  about  70,000  acres  in 
Kansas." 

It  would  be  an  easy  thing  to  run  these  items 
up  into  scores,  in  the  States  and  Territories  west 
of  the  meridian  of  100°  ;  but  we  are  not  collecting 
for  a  catalogue ;  we  cite  cases  only  for  illustrations 
of  the  public  domain  as  shown  by  this  branch  of 
business.  It  seems  quite  in  order,  in  illustrating 
the  immense  areas  of  our  country,  and  some  of  its 
industrial  productions  on  a  gigantic  scale,  by  refer- 
ence to  personal  ownerships,  to  pass  from  the  ranch 


LANDHOLDINGS    IN    THE   UNITED    STATES.       165 

to  the  farm.  The  former  is  grazed  and  the  latter 
is  cultivated.  The  one  is  worked  for  its  products 
by  the  brute  animal  process  of  life,  and  the  other 
by  human  hands  and  mechanics. 

California  will  serve  well  our  purpose,  since  her 
extent,  with  a  sea-board  that  would  extend  from 
New  York  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  affords  nat- 
ural facilities  for  almost  all  the  products  in  Ameri- 
can agriculture.  In  the  southern  division  of  that 
State  we  find,  and  without  close  and  complete  cull- 
ing, the  following  farms:  Moftit  &  Maclay,  20,000 
acres;  E.  J.  Baldwin,  20,000;  J.  W.  Hellman, 
25,000  ;  Eichard  Gird,  30,000  ;  J.  &  L.  Bixbey, 
30,000  ;  B.  F.  &  G.  K.  Porter,  36,000  ;  H.  M.  New- 
hall,  48,000 ;  J.  Irvine,  48,000 ;  Thomas  R.  Bard, 
50,000 ;  D.  Freeman,  50,000 ;  Lankersheim  &  Co., 
56,000;  John  G.  Downey,  75,000 ;  James  S.  Flood, 
137,000  ;  General  Beale,  200,000  ;  Haggin  &  Carr, 
300,000  ;  Miller  &  Lux,  600,000 ;  the  late  Dan 
Murphy  farms,  16,000,000.  Probably  several  of 
these  combine  the  ranch  and  farm  policy. 

Enough  instances  have  been  cited  for  the  pur- 
pose in  hand,  and  yet  certain  other  conspicuous 
ones  should  not  be  omitted.  Off  the  southern 
coast  of  California,  and  not  far  from  Santa  Barbara, 
lies  an  island  about  twenty-four  by  sixteen  miles, 
called  Santa  Ptosa.  This  is  owned  by  A.  P.  Moore, 
who  has  stocked  it  with  eighty  thousand  sheep. 
About  fifty  shearers  clip  the  wool  twice  a  year, 
each  man  shearing  about  ninety  sheep  a  day,  and 


IGG       LANDIIOLDINGS    IN   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

tlie  clip  is  four  huiidrcd  and  fifteen  thousand 
-pounds,  returning  to  Mr.  Moore  about  $112,000. 
In  herding  the  sheep,  trained  goats  are  used  in- 
stead of  dogs,  a  goat  leading  the  band,  and  a 
shepherd  the  goat.  The  sheep-rancli  was  pur- 
chased a  few  years  ago  for  $600,000.  Mr.  Moore 
also  has  an  interest  in  the  Santa  Cruz  island 
ranch  near  by,  of  sixty  four  thousand  acres  and 
twenty-five  thousand  sheep. 

The  well-known  Dalrymple  farm  of  Dakota 
should  not  be  omitted  in  this  connection.  Its 
area  is  thirty  thousand  acres,  and  its  product  of 
wheat  in  1881  was  six  hundred  thousand  bushels. 
The  author  well  remembers  seeing  the  first  two 
square  miles  that  were  ploughed  of  this  famous 
wheat-farm.  It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1875,  and 
the  virgin  prairie  had  been  turned  over,  three  inches 
deep,  in  the  preceding  June.  The  black  furrows 
lay  up  glossy  in  the  October  sun,  as  uniform  and 
distinct  as  the  threads  in  a  web  of  silk.  The  next 
June  those  twelve  hundred  and  eighty  acres,  a 
magnificent  parallelogram,  gave  back  thirty  thou- 
sand bushels  of  wheat. 

It  is  said  that  recently  Rufus  Hatch,  with  some 
English  capitalists,  has  purchased  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  acres  for  stock-raising  on  the 
Yellowstone ;  and  if  the  Farwells  and  others  have 
made  the  purchase  reported,  they  are  probably  the 
largest  landowners  in  the  world.  The  purchase  is 
made  of  the  State  of  Texas,  in  its  northeastern 


LANDHOLDINGS   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES.       167 

section,  and  covers  a  territory  of  one  hundred  and 
ninety-seven  miles  in  length,  with  an  average 
width  of  twenty-seven  miles,  —  a  tract  larger  than 
Connecticut,  or  almost  five  times  as  large  as  Ehode 
Island.  Such  a  land  property  casts  the  Jefferson 
estate  quite  in  the  shade  as  diminutive,  though 
noted  in  the  days  of  the  third  President.  His 
Albemarle  estate  comprised  5,591f  acres,  his  Pop- 
lar Forest  was  about  the  same,  while  his  purchase 
that  embraced  the  Natural  Bridge  was  one  hundred 
and  fifty-seven  acres. 

The  preceding  statements  as  to  stock-farms, 
ranches,  and  ranges,  may  be  presumed  to  be  re- 
liable up  to  the  date  of  writing ;  but  as  they  em- 
brace variable  properties,  titles  and  areas  and 
amount  of  stock  must  be  presumed  to  change 
with  time.  They  serve  fully,  as  they  stand,  the 
purpose  of  their  introduction,  —  to  illustrate  the 
vastness  of  our  public  domain  by  showing  the  im- 
mensity of  local  and  personal  land  interests.  Had 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  been  confined  to 
the  Atlantic  slope  north  of  Florida,  as  the  English 
and  French  and  Spanish  combined  to  do  in  our 
first  quarter-century,  we  should  to-day  be  hemmed 
in  by  those  and  other  European  powers,  much  as 
if  we  were  packed  somewhere  among  the  present 
twenty  small  realms  of  Europe. 

Since  the  above  was  written,  the  author  has 
twice  enjoyed  wild  freedom   among  the   ranches 

1  Report  of  Governor  of  Wyoming,  1885,  p.  1181. 


168      LANDHOLDINGS    IN   THK    UNITED    STATES. 

aud  ranges  of  Wyoming  and  her  two  miliiou 
cattle,  and  of  other  Western  regions.  In  the  wan- 
derings there  over  illimitable  plains,  —  American 
steppes  or  pampas,  —  the  only  guides  and  guards 
and  enclosures  were  tlie  foot-hills  and  the  rivers. 
Ambitious  Lot,  the  primitive  cowboy,  and  his 
uncle  Abraham  could  liave  arranged  easy  separa- 
tion. Lot  could  have  "journeyed  east"  and  found 
abundance  of  grazing  and  water  for  his  stock  in 
the  heads  of  the  North  Platte  and  the  Yellow- 
stone ;  while  Abraham  could  have  moved  off  west, 
and  kept  among  those  crystal  springs  and  trout- 
brooks  which  give  rise  to  the  Colorado  and  the  Co- 
lumbia. The  Territory  of  Wyoming  and  of  cattle, 
where  we  enjoyed  so  much  charming  idleness  and 
profitable  American  observation,  Avould  cut  up  into 
seventeen  Palestines  or  a  dozen  Bay  States,  with 
clippings  enough  for  a  Rhode  Island,  and  ten 
square  miles  over.  Of  course,  as  we  show  a  friend 
our  line  of  travel  there  on  a  map,  the  finger  or 
pointer  or  pencil-head  covers  up  what  would  make 
a  whole  belt  of  Connecticuts,  —  much  as  a  Western 
man  is  troubled  to  find  Massachusetts  on  the  map, 
till  he  lifts  his  finger  from  New  England. 


WILD    LIFE   ON    THE    BOIIDEK.  1G9 


CHAPTEK   VIII. 

WILD    LIFE    ON    THE    BORDER. 

GALISTEO  is  near  the  j  auction  of  the  Santa 
Fe  branch  Avith  its  trunk,  the  Atchison, 
Topeka,  and  Santa  Y6  Road.  In  returning  from 
Santa  Fe  I  had  passed  Galisteo  and  stopped  off 
two  days  at  Baughl's  Station,  then  so-called,  to 
examine  the  ruins  of  Pecos,  —  an  abandoned  Aztec 
pueblo,  with  its  old  Spanish  church,  two  years 
older  than  Boston.  The  age  of  tlie  pueblo  is 
unknown. 

At  the  end  of  the  second  day  I  returned  to  the 
station,  two  miles,  to  take  the  Eastern-bound  train, 
mixed,  of  freight  and  passengers.  It  was  late,  and 
did  not  come  in  till  midnight.  On  arrival,  the 
train-boys  rushed  for  the  station-hands  and  loung- 
ers with  exciting  news  from  Galisteo.  This  Galis- 
teo was  a  kind  of  shanty  and  umbrella  town,  with 
a  great  deal  of  outdoors  to  it.  Here  and  there 
was  an  ancient  adobe,  markiug  the  Mexican  ele- 
ment ;  while  rough  board  saloons  of  two  rooms,  or 
one  with  curtain  partitions  and  gamiug-tables  and 
bars,  showed  the  American  growth.     It  had  signs 


170  WILD   LIFE   ON   THE    BORDER. 

enough  for  a  small  city,  and  conspicuous  among 
them  was  the  one  of  the  colored  barber. 

The  exciting  news  brought  up  on  that  midnight 
train  was  told  by  half  a  dozen  at  once,  as  the 
grim  fellows  huddled,  now  in  the  glare  of  the 
head-light  of  the  engine,  and  now  in  the  murky- 
shadows  of  cars  or  shanties  or  clouds  of  smoke. 
I  kept  near,  but  shady,  while  they  talked  and 
walked. 

"  You  see,"  says  one,  "  that  lank  greaser,  Jim, 
he  put  it  bad  on  the  nigger,  and  he  were  rough. 
The  nigger  he  stood  it  as  long  as  he  could,  for  he 
did  n't  want  to  fight."  "  Yes,  and  a  nigger  has  no 
chance  down  this  way,"  said  another.  "  And  no 
right  to  be  in  these  diggins',  anyhow,"  said  a  third 
rough.  "  By  and  by,"  continued  the  first  speaker, 
"his  blood  it  got  hot,  and  he  drew  a  bead  on  lank 
Jim,  but,  missing  him,  took  Joe  Lawkins  right  in 
the  ribs."  "  Bad,"  said  some  one,  "  for  everybody 
likes  Joe."  "  If  it  had  been  lank  Jim,  it  would 
have  been  hueno,"  shouted  two  or  three.  "  The 
nigger  did  n't  go  for  Joe,"  some  one  interposed. 
"  Well,"  continued  the  first  man,  "  Lawkins  he  was 
done  for  in  ten  minutes.  Then  his  brother  he 
felt  powerful  bad,  and  lank  Jim  he  said,  '  Shoot 
the  nigger  ! '  but  two  or  three  others  said,  '  Shoot 
lank  Jim ! '  Then  they  said  '  yes '  and  '  no '  all 
round  lively.  Things  got  mixed  mighty  fast,  and 
the  fellows  got  on  steam,  and  every  one  stood  with 
his   finger  on   his   weepon."      "  Hi !   Hi ! "   cried 


WILD    LIFE   ON   THE   BOEDER.  171 

two  or  three.  "  Well,"  he  continued,  "  the  nigger 
he  was  making  himself  scarce  toward  the  arroyo, 
when  some  feller  popped  on  him."  "*Lank  Jim, 
you  bet,"  said  one.  "  Yes ;  and  you  bet,"  the 
principal  speaker  went  on  to  say,  "  that  three  or 
four  put  their  muzzles  right  up  to  lank  Jim,  and 
cried,  '  You  hold  ! '  Well,  the  barber  he  was  leav- 
ing on  double  quick,  and  lank  Jim's  side  went 
after  him.  Then  some  fired  on  them,  and  they 
fired  back  ;  and  in  two  twinks  they  were  firing 
both  ways,  and  then  all  round.  Oh,  'twas  a  high 
old  time  ! "  "  Well,  who  is  tumbled  ?  "  several 
cried  at  once.  "  They  brought  back  the  nigger 
as  white  as  a  nigger  could  be,  and  the  shooting 
stopped.  Then  Joe's  brother  he  said,  'This  is  my 
business,  and  the  nigger  sha'  n't  be  hurt.'  Then 
lank  Jim  and  his  side  they  swore  awful ;  and 
both  sides  stood  around  the  nigger,  and  every  man 
had  his  finger  on  his  weepon.  Then  Joe's  brother 
he  said,  '  The  nigger  shall  have  his  life  in  his  legs, 
and  an  hour's  start.'  Then  they  cleaned  him  of 
his  weepons,  and  he  got  up  and  got ;  and  it  were 
tall,  the  way  he  did  that  thing.  Pretty  soon  Joe's 
brother  he  felt  powerful  bad  again ;  for  there  lay 
Joe,  and  the  blood  running  out  of  his  jacket,  and 
nobody  hurt  for  it.  Then  Joe's  brother  he  said, 
'  Somebody  must  suffer,  and  you  may  go  for  the 
nigger.'  So  half  of  them  they  prepared  to  git ;  and 
the  rest  they  lifted  their  weepons,  and  said,  '  You 
sha'  n't  touch  his  curly  head,  for  he  did  n't  go  to 


17 '2  WILD    LIFE    0\    THE    BORDER. 

do  it.'  So  tliey  were  talking  high  and  swinging 
their  weepons,  when  the  machine  she  whistled  '  All 
aboard  ! '  and  we  vamosed.  But  it  was  a  high  old 
time,  and  I  don't  know  what  became  of  the  nig." 

In  a  short  time  we  also  were  off;  and  so  I  left 
that  twilight  border  of  civilization.  That  "  high 
old  time  "  was  not  so  uncommon  an  affair,  and  it 
v.-as,  withal,  a  bit  typical  of  the  front.  Such 
scenes  do  not  often  find  their  way  into  the  papers, 
for  both  local  papers  and  readers  are  scarce.  If 
noted  men  from  the  States  are  waylaid,  or  large 
sums  of  money  are  stolen,  or  railroad  surveyors 
are  shot  down,  the  incident  travels  up  to  the 
Arkansas  and  Missouri  and  so  comes  East.  In 
Sante  F^  I  was  told  that  many  of  her  leading 
men,  in  the  past,  had  failed  to  reach  a  natural 
death.  I  had  just  left, Pierce  City,  Mo.,  on  this 
same  trip,  when  it  was  thrown  into  a  fever  by  a 
bold  daylight  stage  robbery  fifteen  miles  off;  And 
fifty  men  jumped  to  their  saddles  with  rifles  in 
hot  hunting  for  the  banditti.  In  that  Southwest 
these  brigands  make  ns  think  of  mountainous 
Italy  and  Turkey  and  the  Koord  ranges. 

Probably  the  East  does  not  hear  of  one  in  a 
hundred  of  those  outrages.  A  Galveston  paper 
before  me  mentions  four  hundred  arrests  in  that 
State,  in  1880,  for  crimes  punishable  with  death. 
Fourteen  were  convicted,  four  of  these  hung,  and 
the  others  let  off  lightly.  I  drifted  down  toward 
Liberty  County,   Texas,   that   had  the   credit   of 


WILD   LIFE   ON   THE  BORDER.  173 

nearly  four  hundred  homicides  within  a  few 
years. 

It  thrilled  New  England  when  Dr.  Leonard 
Bacon,  years  ago,  gave  his  account  of  the  seizure 
of  his  party  by  brigands  between  two  stations  of 
the  American  Board  in  the  East.  One  need  not 
now  go  abroad  for  such  incidents  ;  be  M'ill  find 
the  stations  for  home  missions  on  the  borders 
far  off,  and  the  outrages  close  by.  After  I  came 
up  from  that  "  high  old  time  "  into  Colorado,  I 
signed  the  application  for  the  first  Congregational 
missionary  station  in  New  Mexico.  They  then 
had  none  in  Arizona.  The  two  Territories  are 
equal  to  twenty-six  areas  of  Massachusetts,  and 
w-e  then  had  had  them  on  hand  more  than  tliirty 
years.  In  that  State  of  four  hundred  arrests  for 
capital  crimes  the  American  Home  Missionary  So- 
ciety then  had  two  missionaries  only.  The  great 
civilizing  power  at  that  time  in  New  Mexico  was 
the  Atchison,  Topeka,  and  Santa  Fe  Eailroad. 

All  this  accords  very  well  with  what  Mowry 
said  of  that  region  in  1864  :  "  There  is  no  law  or 
protection  from  Government.  Every  man  redresses 
his  wrongs  with  the  pistol  or  knife,  or  submits  in 
silence."  ^  If  the  germs  of  many  frontier  settle- 
ments are  taken  into  account,  it  will  be  seen  that 
only  a  low  and  imperfect  stage  of  civilization  can 
be  expected  for  one  or  two  generations.     And  if 

1  Arizona  and  Sonora.  By  Sylvester  Mowry,  Delegate  to 
Congress.     Harpers,  1864.    p.  34. 


174  WILD    LIFE   ON   THE   BORDER. 

some  of  the  authorities  about  to  be  quoted  pertain 
much  to  earlier  days,  it  must  be  considered  that 
half  a  century  and  even  more  sometimes,  on  an 
old  Spanish  and  Indian  basis,  is  not  a  long  period 
for  growth  and  fruiting  after  the  planting  of  a 
new  civil  and  social  life.  ]\Ioreover,  yesterday  is 
to-day  on  the  frontier.  The  cliaracter,  quality, 
and  conduct  which  marked  our  extreme  western 
belt  of  settlement  long  years  ago  is  quite  the 
same  as  formerly ;  it  is  only  the  belt  which  has 
changed,  and  it  only  its  place.  Perliaps  the  quali- 
fication should  be  added  that  there  is  more  vio- 
lence, rougli  crime,  and  brigand  outrage  since  the 
mining  element  came  in  ;  and  the  Indians  with 
less  roaming-ground,  and  invaded  by  an  eastern 
and  a  western  army  of  immigrants,  are  the  occa- 
sion of  more  personal  and  bloody  rencontres. 

The  reflections  of  Monette  are  strictly  just  and 
historically  accurate,  whether  applied  to  the  flood 
of  immigration  which  set  into  the  frontier  in 
1774,  as  he  applies  them,  or  to  that  of  any  decade 
since  :  "  It  is  a  fact  which  has  been  verified  by  all 
experience,  from  the  first  occupancy  of  the  British 
Colonics  in  North  America  up  to  the  present  time, 
that  when  the  tide  of  emigration  sets  strong 
toward  the  wilderness  occupied  by  the  native 
tribes,  a  large  proportion  of  the  most  lawless  and 
worthless  part  of  the  population  is  carried  in 
advance  of  the  older  settlements  like  drift-wood 
upon  a  swollen  river.     Hence  it  is  almost  impos- 


WILD    LIFE   ON   THE    BOIJDER.  175 

sible  for  tlie  civil  authorities  to  restrain  acts  of 
lawless  violence  in  such  persons  on  the  extreme 
confines  of  civilization.  Men  wlio  are  impatient 
of  the  wholesome  restraints  of  law  and  social  order 
naturally  seek  those  parts  of  a  civilized  commu- 
nity where  the  arm  of  the  civil  authority  is  weak- 
ened by  distance,  or  wliere  they  find  themselves 
beyond  the  reach  of  civil  government."  ^ 

No  language  could  more  aptly  describe  large 
sections  of  our  border  population  of  to-day.  They 
have  sought  the  front  for  the  reasons  here  given, 
and  maintain  a  semi-civilized  independence  of 
civil  government.  Between  1769  and  1823  the 
Franciscan  Missions  settled  about  five  hundred 
miles  of  the  California  coast,  and  inland  for  fifty 
miles.  Church  and  State  united  in  this  work, — 
the  one  for  religion,  and  the  other  for  empire  ;  and 
the  soldiers  and  colonists  sent  out  by  the  Gov- 
ernment were  often  raflians  and  renegades  trans- 
ported for  crimes.^  All  of  New  Spain  had  much 
of  this  unfortunate  material  in  its  foundations,  and 
we  are  prepared,  therefore,  to  read  what  Lieutenant 
Pike  said  of  it  in  the  narrative  of  his  Expedition 
into  it,  published  in  1807.  In  an  apologetic  para- 
graph in  the  Preface  he  says  :  "  With  respect;  to 
the  Spanish  part,  it  has  been  suggested  to  me  by 

1  jronette,  History  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  vol.  i. 
p.  369. 

-  The  Natural  Wealth  of  California.  By  Titus  Fye  Cronise. 
1868. 


176  WILD    LIFE   ON   THE   BORDER. 

some  respected  friends,  that  tlie  picture  I  drew  of 
the  inanucrs,  morals,  etc.,  of  individuals,  generally 
of  New  Spain,  if  a  good  likeness,  was  certainly  not 
making  a  proper  return  for  the  hospitality  and 
kindness  with  which  those  people  honored  me. 
Those  reasons  have  induced  me  to  omit  many 
transactions,  and  draw  a  veil  over  various  habits 
and  customs,  which  might  appear  in  an  unfavor- 
able point  of  view,  at  the  same  time  that  I  have 
dwelt  on  their  virtues." 

Where  so  much  of  the  uncivilized  and  degrad- 
ing is  revealed,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  what  can 
have  been  veiled.  Of  that  New  Spain  the  United 
States  took  the  area  of  one  hundred  and  four 
States  like  Massachusetts,  including  Texas  and 
the  Gadsden  purchase,  and  the  Galisteo  of  the 
opening  paragraph  in  this  chapter  is  a  part  of  it. 

The  evil  elements  here  indicated  in  our  territory 
of  Spanish  colonizations  have  been  enhanced  in 
our  earlier  frontier  domain  by  the  mixed  nation- 
alities of  the  border  men.  In  years  gone  by,  in 
the  second  and  third  quarters  of  this  century,  we 
were  not  receiving  from  the  Old  World  so  good  a 
class  of  foreigners  as  to-day,  and  with  their  im- 
ported notions  of  government  and  law  in  this 
country,  as  also  of  social  and  moral  life,  these 
mixed  races  from  the  Old  World  did  not  well  unify 
or  constitute  the  best  foundations  for  coming 
towns.  Look  at  those  founders  as  grouped  by 
Bradbury,  the  English  traveller,  in  the  "  Interior 


WILD   LIFE   ON    THE   BORDER.  177 

of  North  America  in  1809-11":  "The  popula- 
tion is  at  present  compounded  of  a  great  number 
of  nations  not  yet  amalgamated,  consisting  of 
emigrants  from  every  State  in  the  Union,  mixed 
with  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  Dutch,  Swiss,  Ger- 
man, French,  and  almost  from  every  country  in 
Europe."  ^ 

If  an  Eastern  community,  under  traditional  re- 
gime, staid,  conservative,  and  almost  fossil,  is 
sometimes  perplexed  or  alarmed  by  the  advent  of 
a  few  **  foreigners,"  presumed  to  be  innovators  and 
possibly  lawless,  what  is  to  be  thought  or  said  of 
one  of  these  frontier  belts  of  Bradbury  ?  "With 
time  and  aid  all  will  come  right,  if  the  assimilating 
and  organizing  present  can  be  well  passed.  The 
future  is  insured ;  it  is  the  present  wliich  is  criti- 
cal, since  man's  natural  state,  antecedent  to  local 
government,  is  a  wild  state. 

Account  also  must  be  taken  of  the  fact  that 
many  new  settlements  are  started,  not  only  by  pio- 
neers, but  by  families  whose  ancestors  have  been 
pioneers  for  two  or  three  generations.  One  cita- 
tion will  show  a  double  fact,  —  w^hat  the  old  fron- 
tier was,  and  what  the  new  one  must  be  for 
a  season.  An  English  tourist  in  California,  in 
1857,  speaking  of  the  immigrants  there  from  Pike 
County,  Mo.,  says  :  "  Till  they  came  to  California, 
most  of  them  had  never  in  their  lives  before  seen 
two  houses  together ;  and  in  any  little  village  in 

1  Bradbury's  Travels,  p.  304. 
12 


178  WILD   LIFK   ON   THE   BORDER. 

the  mines  they  witnessed  more  of  the  wonders  of 
civilization  than  ever  they  had  dreamed  of."  ^ 

In  the  United  States  nothing  seems  to  test  the 
civilization  of  a  man  more  than  to  have  his  own 
interests  brought  into  close  relations  with  the  in- 
terests of  the  Indians.  Eight  and  wrong  appear 
to  lose  their  immutability  as  held  and  practised 
in  older  and  more  civilized  communities,  and  one 
is  inclined  to  ask  whether  pecuniary  and  social 
morals  are  provincial.  At  least,  a  keen  sense  of 
right,  honor,  and  integrity  do  not  seem  to  have 
emigrated  with  the  man  to  the  semi-wild  frontier, 
or  there  is  something  in  his  new  surroundings  that 
is  decivilizing.  This  is  an  experience  or  fact  which 
antedates  the  founding  of  the  Eepublic  and  is  still 
vigorous  in  its  repetition. 

In  1768  the  president  of  the  King's  Council  for 
Virginia  set  forth,  in  a  message  to  the  Colonial 
Legislature,  "  that  a  set  of  men,  regardless  of  the 
laws  of  natural  justice,  unmindful  of  the  duties 
they  owe  to  society,  and  in  contempt  of  the  royal 
proclamations,  have  dared  to  settle  themselves  up- 
on the  lands  near  Redstone  Creek  and  Cheat  River, 
which  are  the  property  of  the  Indians ;  and  not- 
withstanding the  repeated  wrarnings  of  the  danger 
of  such  lawless  proceedings,  and  the  strict  and 
spirited  injunctions  to  desist  and  quit  their  unjust 
possessions,  they  still  remain  unmoved,  and  seem 

1  Three  Years  in  California.  By  J.  D.  Borthwick,  1851-52. 
Edinburgh  and  London,  1857.     pp.  147,  148. 


WILD   LIFE   ON   THE   BORDER.  179 

to  defy  the  orders  and  even  the  powers  of  the 
Government."  ^ 

It  would  be  difficult  to  frame  passages  more  per- 
tinent for  a  presidential  proclamation  against  tlie 
invasion  of  Oklahoma  in  1884.  This  falling  off  of 
frontier  men  into  a  wild  border  life  is  as  notable 
as  it  is  lamentable,  and  has  causes  which  are  per- 
manent, while  the  decades  run  by  and  the  frontier 
moves  on.  The  explanation  may  lie  partly  in  the 
fact  that  the  looseness  incident  to  camp,  tent,  and 
saddle  life  makes  an  equitable  government  and 
fair- toned  justice  quite  impossible.  Be  the  causes 
what  they  may,  the  humiliating  passage  of  Mac- 
kenzie cannot  be  much  qualified  :  "  Experience 
proves  that  it  requires  much  less  time  for  a  civil- 
ized people  to  deviate  into  the  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  savage  life  than  for  savages  to  rise  into  a 
state  of  civilization."  ^ 

Of  tliis  decivilizing  process,  Parkman,  in  "  The 
Old  Edgime  in  Canada,"  gives  a  graphic  and  start- 
ling account  in  the  thirteenth  and  seventeenth 
chapters.  It  was  while  Canada  was  yet  French 
domain,  and  that  defeat,  on  the  Plains  of  Abra- 
ham, so  total  and  so  continental,  was  in  the  near- 
ing  future  :  — 

"  Out  of  the  beaver  trade  rose  a  huge  evil,  bane- 
ful to  the  growth  and  the  morals  of  Canada.     All 

1  Butler's  History  of  Kentucky,  Appendix,  p.  475. 

2  Voyages  from  Montreal  to  the  Frozen  and  Pacific  Oceans 
in  1789  and  1793,  Preface. 


180  WILD    LIFE    ON    THE    BORDER. 

that  was  most  active  and  vigorous  in  the  colony 
took  to  the  woods  and  escaped  Iroiu  the  control  of 
intendants,  councils,  and  priests,  to  the  savage  free- 
dom of  the  wilderness.  .  .  .  Edict  after  edict  was 
directed  against  them ;  and  more  than  once  tlie 
colony  presented  the  extraordinary  spectacle  of  the 
greater  part  of  its  young  men  turned  into  forest 
outlaws.  .  .  .  Their  plan  was  to  be  absent  four 
years,  in  order  that  the  edicts  against  them  might 
have  time  to  relent.  .  .  .  The  king  ordered  that 
any  person  going  into  the  woods  without  a  license 
should  be  wliipped  and  branded  for  the  first  offence, 
and  sent  for  life  to  the  galleys  for  the  second." 

Denonville,  the  Governor  of  Canada,  reports  in 
later  years  "  on  their  vagabond  and  lawless  ways, 
their  indifference  to  marriage,  and  the  mischief 
caused  by  their  example ;  describes  how  on  their 
return  from  the  woods  they  swagger  like  lords, 
spend  all  their  gains  in  dress  and  drunken  rev- 
elry, and  despise  the  peasants,  whose  daughters 
they  will  not  deign  to  marry,  though  they  are 
peasants  themselves,  .  .  .  and  cause  their  children 
to  be  as  unruly  as  Indians,  being  brought  up  in  the 
same  manner."  Married  or  unmarried,  these  rene- 
gades of  civilization,  in  their  four  years'  absence 
for  trade  and  wilderness  freedom  among  the  In- 
dians, had  left  their  children  scattered  through  the 
forests. 

Lord  Selkirk's  Red  River  Settlement,  when  his 


WILD    LIFE    ON    THE    BORDER.  181 

heirs  were  bought  out  in  1(S35,  serves  well  the 
illustratiou  of  Wild  Life  ou  the  Border.  "  The 
inhabitants  of  the  region  at  the  time  were  of  as 
motley  and  miscellaneous  a  make-up  as  any  ex- 
tensive region  of  the  earth  would  have  afforded, 
—  Canadians,  half-breeds,  Indians,  and  naked, 
painted,  and  featliered  savages,  strutting  and  fum- 
ing voyageurs,  farmers,  hunters,  fishermen,  fur- 
nished with  missionaries  of  rival  creeds,  and  not 
without  means  of  education.  Groups  of  human 
dwellings  presented  the  strongest  contrast,  as  be- 
tween well-furnished  and  well-stocked  houses  and 
farm-barns,  and  the  filthiest,  dreariest  cabins  and 
wigwams.  Any  of  the  Indians  who  were  inclined 
to  adopt  the  usages  of  civilization  had  the  progres- 
sive stages  of  it  set  before  them  and  facilitated, 
all  the  way  up  from  and  all  the  way  down  to 
barbarism.  Many  of  the  settlers,  however,  were 
faithful  to  their  Indian  wives,  sought  to  raise  them 
and  their  habits  and  modes  of  life,  and  sent  their 
half-blood  offspring  to  Canada  and  Europe  for 
education."  ^ 

It  is  very  true  that  these  facts  are  old,  yet  not 
old  enough  to  be  obsolete  or  unrepeated.  In 
1843-44  Fremont  made  an  exploring  tour  to  Ore- 
gon and  northern  California.  On  the  return  to  the 
States  the  expedition  stopped  June  1st  of  the  lat- 
ter year,  at  Eoubideau's  trading-post  on  the  Uin- 

1  The  Red  Man  and  the  White  Man.  By  George  E.  Ellis. 
p.  494. 


182  WILD    LIFE    ON    THE   BORDER. 

tah  river,  and  Frdiiioiit  tlius  speaks  of  it:  "  It  lias 
mostly  a  garrison  of  Canadians  and  Spanish  en- 
gages and  hunters,  with  the  usual  number  of  In- 
dian women."  Two  years  afterward  all  that  region 
was  swept  into  the  Union,  and  to-day  it  is  a  fitting 
part  of  polygamous  Utah. 

We  sometimes  try  to  think  that  wild  life  on  the 
border  has  been  lived  out,  and  gone  into  legends 
and  books.  No  doubt  the  era  of  blood  in  Sau 
Francisco  is  passed,  which  is  thus  epitomized  by 
the  California  "  Alta  "  of  June  1,  1856  :  "  Over  a 
year  ago  we  understood  the  district  attorney  to 
state,  in  an  argument  before  a  jury  in  a  murder 
case,  that  since  the  settlement  of  San  Francisco 
by  the  American  people  there  had  been  twelve 
hundred  murders  committed  here.  We  thought 
at  the  time  the  number  stated  was  unduly  large, 
and  think  so  still." 

That  city  has  done  making  such  records,  yet 
others  are  doing  it  in  our  new  country.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1880,  a  policeman  of  Leadville,  then  a  city  of 
twelve  thousand,  informed  the  writer  that  since  he 
entered  that  service  in  the  March  preceding,  the 
violent  deaths  there  had  averaged  two  a  week. 
"  The  highest  time  we  had  was  a  Sunday  in  April, 
when  seven  were  killed." 

We  return  to  early  San  Francisco  in  this  study 
of  American  the  border.  An  English  traveller 
made  himself  somewhat  familiar  with  California 
in  the  years  1851-54,  and  speaks  in  this  way  of 


WILD   LIFE   ON   THE   BORDER.  183 

the  amusements  and  habits  of  San  Francisco  at 
that  time :  "  The  most  curious  were  certainly 
the  masquerades.  They  were  generally  given 
in  one  of  the  large  gambling-saloons,  and  in  the 
placards  announcing  that  they  were  to  come  off 
appeared  conspicuously  the  intimations  of  'No 
Weapons  Admitted  ; '  'A  Strong  Police  will  be 
in  Attendance.' "  ^ 

Many  years  after  we  came  into  possession  of 
New  Mexico,  as  an  official  of  the  United  States  in- 
formed the  author,  there  in  a  prominent  city  social 
assemblies  were  held  twice  a  week,  and  they  were 
originated  and  patronized  by  the  leading  men; 
but  none  of  their  partners  were  their  wives,  or 
married  women. 

The  Sabbath  is  a  good  day  in  which  to  view  the 
frontier.  Of  the  origin,  authority,  modes  of  observ- 
ance, and  utility  of  the  Christian  Sabbath  there 
are  many  views,  and  all  are  entitled  to  consider- 
ation, though  conflicting.  In  the  main,  however, 
there  is  a  general  agreement  that  the  mode  and 
tone  in  which  this  day  is  received  and  passed  are 
a  fair  index  to  the  civil,  social,  and  moral  character 
of  the  place.  These  illustrations,  therefore,  out 
of  many  of  Sabbath  life,  are  cited  to  show  some 
phases  of  the  border.  Flint  has  already  been 
quoted  as  an  intelligent,  observing,  and  candid 
resident  of  ten  years  on  the  frontier,  — 1815-25. 

1  Three  Years  in  California.  By  J.  D.  Borthwick.  Edin- 
burgh and  London,  1857.    p.  77. 


184  WILD    LIFE   ON    THE    BORDER. 

He  was  both  a  teacher  and  a  minister,  and  has  left 
this  record  of  the  Sabbath  at  the  Post  of  Arkansas. 
When  he  marks  the  observance  as  French,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  lie  samples  a  wide  territory, 
and  a  people  who  gave  a  broad  and  deep  quality  to 
the  primitive  civilization  of  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley :  "  The  French  people  generally  came  to  the 
place  of  worship  arrayed  in  ball-dresses,  and  went 
direct  from  worship  to  the  ball.  A  brilliant  room 
was  near,  and  parts  of  my  audience  sometimes 
came  in  for  a  moment,  and  after  listening  to  a  few 
sentences  returned  to  their  billiards."  ^ 

The  vivid  recollections  of  St.  Louis  come  back, 
as  we  found  it  fifteen  years  later,  with  its  seven- 
teen thousand  people,  French,  Spanish,  and  Amer- 
ican, and  a  bold  dash  of  blood  from  old  Europe. 
There  was  unusual  life  on  the  Sabbath,  though 
not  much  business  on  the  levee,  between  the  solid 
Front  Street  ti'ading-houses  and  the  twenty  to 
forty  steamers  lying  uneasy  at  the  bank  in  the 
muddy  Missouri  water.  The  clear  and  compara- 
tively pure  Mississippi  was  crowded  by  it  to  the 
Illinois  shore,  and  it  hugged  it  with  more  or  less 
of  the  distinctness  of  a  dividing  line  for  fifty  miles 
down.  For  religious  purposes  we  made  regularly 
the  Sabbath  tour  of  the  levee  and  steamers  all 
tlirough  the  months  of  open  navigation  for  a  year. 
The  Christian  Sabbath  was  as  foreign  to  that  levee 
as  any  sacred  day  of  an  Arab  or  Hindu.     Many 

1  Flint's  Travels,  p.  274. 


WILD    LIFE   ON    THE    BORDER.  185 

shops  were  open  in  the  city  •  parades  with  music 
were  common  ;  and  as  congregations  were  gather- 
ing for  worship  it  created  no  surprise  to  meet  a 
band  of  clattering  horsemen  on  the  streets  headed 
for  the  country,  carrying  their  fowling-pieces  and 
whistling  their  game-dogs  alon»r. 

Borthwick  the  Englishman  has  been  already 
quoted.  His  description  of  a  mining  town  on  the 
Sabbath  will  answer  to-day  as  faithfully  as  twenty- 
five  years  ago  to  any  large  mining  camp  between 
the  Black  Hills  and  Sonora  :  — 

"  During  the  week,  and  especially  when  the 
miners  were  all  at  work,  Hangtown  [now  Placer- 
ville]  was  comparatively  quiet,  but  on  Sundays 
it  was  a  very  different  place.  On  that  day  the 
miners  living  within  eight  or  ten  miles  all  Hocked 
in  to  buy  provisions  for  the  week,  to  spend  their 
money  in  the  gambling-saloons,  to  play  cards,  to 
get  their  letters  from  home,  and  to  refresh  them- 
selves after  a  week's  labor  and  isolation  in  the 
mountains,  in  enjoying  the  excitement  of  the 
scene  according  to  their  tastes.  .  .  .  The  store- 
keepers did  more  business  on  Sundays  than  in 
all  the  rest  of  the  week ;  and  in  the  afternoon 
crowds  of  miners  could  be  seen  dispersing  over  the 
hills  in  every  direction,  laden  with  the  provisions 
they  had  been  pjurchasing,  chiefly  flour,  pork,  and 
beans,  and  perhaps  a  lump  of  fresh  beef.  .  .  . 
There  was  only  one  place  of  public  worship  in 


186  WILD    LIFE    ON    THE    BOUDEU. 

Hangtown,  —  a  very  neat  little  wooden  edifice 
which  belonged  to  some  denomination  of  Metho- 
dists, and  seemed  to  he  well  attended.  ...  On  the 
streets  almost  every  one  wore  a  pistol  or  a  knife, 
many  wore  both ;  but  they  were  rarely  used."  ^ 

There  may  have  been  no  natural  and  original 
connection  between  the  name  and  the  Sabbath 
character  of  this  place,  but  there  is  a  legitimate 
and  grim  aptness  between  the  two.  "  Placerville, 
known  in  early  times  as  'Hangtown,'  in  memory 
of  the  lynching  there  of  three  men  who  were 
arrested  for  highway  robbery,  and  two  of  them 
identified  as  the  persons  guilty  of  a  murder."  ^ 

A  pen-photograph  of  the  place  by  our  author 
will  not  be  out  of  place  on  this  page  :  "  The  street 
itself  was  in  many  places  knee-deep  in  mud,  and 
was  plentifully  strewed  with  old  boots,  hats,  and 
shirts,  old  sardine-boxes,  empty  tins  of  preserved 
oysters,  empty  bottles,  worn-out  pots  and  kettles, 
old  ham-bones,  broken  picks  and  shovels,  and  other 
rubbish  too  various  to  particularize."  ^ 

Although  our  Southwest,  beyond  the  Missis- 
sippi, cannot  all  be  called  border  land,  it  has 
been  characterized  by  a  wild  life  that  should  be 
embraced  in  the  survey  of  this  chapter.  When 
we  purchased  Louisiana,  we  annexed  a  civilization 

1  Three  Years  in  California.  By  J.  D.  Borthwick.  1851-54. 
pp.  118,  119. 

2  Tuthill'.s  History  of  California,  p.  389. 
8  Borthwick,  pp.  114,  115. 


WILD    LIFE    ON   THE    BORDER.  187 

essentially  foreign,  and  raucb  of  it  mediaeval ;  and 
while  it  has  to  an  extent  been  Americanized,  it 
still  presents  startling  and  painful  points  to  one 
who  would  make  the  region  a  social  and  moral 
study.  What  New  Orleans  was,  much  of  society 
still  is,  on  the  west  of  it,  and  up  to  the  then  reced- 
ing: border.  When  we  read  the  account  of  that 
city,  by  George  W.  Cable,  the  wonder  is,  not  that 
social  convulsions  have  agitated  society  there,  and 
the  wide  regions  moulded  by  it,  but  that  the  frame- 
work itself  of  society  has  endured.  And  while  his 
painfully  graphic  description  is  confined  nominally 
to  the  city  at  one  epoch,  it  runs  out,  practically, 
over  a  vast  area  to  the  west,  and  into  an  era  of  half 
a  century :  — 

"Between  1831  and  1833  the  foreign  exports 
and  imports  ran  up  from  twenty-six  to  nearly 
fifty-four  millions  of  dollars.  .  .  .  Vice  put  on  the 
same  activity  that  commerce  showed.  The  Creole 
had  never  been  a  strong  moral  foi'ce.  The  Amer- 
ican came  in  as  to  gold  diggings  or  diamond  fields, 
—  to  grab  and  run.  The  transatlantic  immigrant 
of  those  days  was  the  offscouring  of  Europe.  The 
West  Indian  was  a  leader  in  licentiousness,  gam- 
bling, and  duelling.  The  number  of  billiard-rooms, 
gaming-houses,  and  lottery  offices  was  immense. 
In  the  old  town  they  seemed  to  be  every  second 
house.  There  was  the  French  Evangelical  Church 
Lottery,  the   Baton   Ptouge   Church   Lottery,  the 


188  WILL)    LIFE    ON    THE   BORDER. 

Natchitoches  Church  Lottery,  and  a  host  of  others 
less  piously  inclined.  The  catus  of  the  central 
town  were  full  of  filibusters.  .  .  .  Even  in  the 
heart  of  the  town  highway  robbery  and  murder 
lay  always  in  wait  for  the  incautious  night  way- 
farer who  ventured  out  alone.  .  .  .  The  worst  day 
of  all  the  week  was  Sunday.  The  stores  and  shops 
were  open,  but  toil  slackened  and  license  gained 
headway.  Gambling-rooms  and  ball-rooms  were 
full,  weapons  were  often  out,  the  masques  of  the 
Salle  de  Cond^  were  thronged  with  men  of  high 
standing,  and  crowds  of  barge  and  raits  men,  as 
well  as  Creoles  and  St.  Domingoans,  gathered  at 
those  open-air  African  dances,  carousals,  and  de- 
baucheries in  the  rear  of  the  town,  that  have  left 
their  monument  in  the  name  of  Congo  Square.  .  .  . 
Schools  were  scarce  and  poor,  churches  few  and  ill- 
attended,  and  domestic  service  squalid,  inefficient, 
and  corrupt."  ^ 

This  is  not  the  New  Orleans  of  to-day,  but  that 
New  Orleans  is  now  diffused,  propagated,  "gone 
West"  into  and  across  Texas,  into  the  interior  and 
on  the  borders. 

Sample  and  reference  illustrations  would  prop- 
erly follow  such  a  statement.  We  enter  a  Texan 
hotel  in  the  newer  interior  or  rough  border  of  this 
Empire  State.  The  "  hostelrie  "  is  a  shanty  strug- 
gling to  be  a  story  and  a  half.     Office,  reception- 

1  The  Century,  June,  1883.  The  Great  South  Gate.  By 
George  W.  Cable,    pp.  221,  222. 


WILD    LIFE   ON    THE   BOKDER.  189 

room,  ladies'  room,  common  sitting-room,  private 
parlors,  and  the  family  room  are  all  one  and  the 
same  apartment,  twelve  feet  by  twelve.  The 
gaunt  traveller  easily  measures  the  height  of  the 
ceiling  if  he  is  above  five  feet  ten,  and  stoops  to 
conquer  a  position.  Within  this  room  are  the 
squat,  uncourtly,  unwashed  landlord  ;  the  landlady 
and  baby  and  nursery  appendages;  half  a  dozen 
urchins  of  the  family  stock,  which  in  Texas  seems 
to  run  mostly  to  boys  ;  some  cowboys  in  leather 
breeches  and  spurs,  and  whiskey  with  its  spurs ; 
loafers  from  the  nearest  cabins  in  constant  attend- 
ance ;  two  or  three  boarders  with  wives,  —  it  is  just 
before  dinner,  —  and  a  couple  of  horseback  travel- 
lers. The  announcement  of  dinner  sweeps  them  all 
into  a  banqueting-hall  of  corresponding  splendor 
and  furnishing  —  in  a  "  lean-to."  As  the  rosy  sun- 
set fades  out,  and  dewy  eve  steals  on,  they  all  re- 
tire to  their  several  apartments,  and  do  not  go  far, 
for  sweet  repose.  The  sable  curtains  of  the  night 
make  further  description  impossible,  and  so  we  leave 
the  reader  fancy  free.  Men  of  saddle,  or  buggy,  or 
stage,  over  the  magnificent  distances  in  the  por- 
tions of  sparsely-peopled  Texas,  know  experimen- 
tally that  this  description  is  drawn  mildly,  and  will 
answer  for  much  highway  off  the  railroad  in  an 
immense  State. 

These  are  an  American  type  of  the  merry  for- 
esters of  early  England,  with  some  dash  of  the 
Knishts  of  tlie  liound  Table  in  their  blood.    Amer- 


190  WILD    LIFE    ON    THE   BORDER. 

icans  and  citizens,  yet  owning  to  no  government 
that  does  not  go  with  them  in  the  saddle,  they  live 
a  hybrid  order  of  life,  produced  of  the  prairie  and 
saddle  and  tent.  The  untravelled  yet  intelligent 
man  of  the  old  thirteen  States,  living  among  the 
hills  of  his  ancestors,  with  schoolhouses  and  kind 
neighbors,  and  churches  and  bridges,  and  old  oaken 
buckets  swinging  in  the  wells  of  Jacobs  all  about 
him,  knows  the  least  possible  of  his  fellow-citizens 
on  the  border.  He  has  not  enough  in  his  mind 
of  even  "such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of"  to 
furnish  a  sleepy  conception  of  them.  What  oc- 
casion has  he  ever  had  to  know  what  a  saddle  and 
sleeping  blanket,  now  a  tent  and  now  a  bed,  a 
camp-fire,  and  a  buffalo  or  antelope  steak  broiled 
on  a  ramrod,  will  make  of  a  man  ?  It  would  re- 
quire eight  New  Englands  to  cover  United  States 
territory  which  is  occupied  more  or  less  in  this 
way.  The  fascination  of  it  and  its  power  of  self- 
propagation  and  extension  are  an  amazement  to 
every  book  student  of  civilization. 

One  of  the  problems  of  a  Christian  civilization, 
so  called,  offers  itself  to  our  study,  with  a  vast  ex- 
panse and  a  diffuse  population,  constituting  the 
wild  border-life  on  our  southwest.  Aboriginally 
it  was  barbarian  and  pagan,  in  the  European  terms 
of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  Then 
came  European  civilization  and  Spanish  Chris- 
tianity to  lift  up  the  people.  With  what  results  ? 
"  The  Pueblo  Indians,  living  in  well-built  villages. 


WILD    LIFE    ON   THE    BORDER.  191 

depending  upon  agriculture,  possessing  certain 
comforts  of  manufactures  and  arts,  and  advanced 
somewhat  in  civil  and  social  ideas,  were  encoun- 
tered by  the  Spaniards,  tliree  and  a  third  centuries 
ago,  in  the  same  localities  where  they  are  now 
found,  and  with  the  same  manners  and  customs 
as  to-day,"^ 

As  to  their  explorers,  or  rather  invaders,  the 
same  author  says :  "  In  all  forms  of  treaties  and  in 
all  cases  of  submission  the  unalterable  condition 
of  faith  to  the  new  religion  was  required."  Speak- 
ing of  the  pueblo  of  Taos,  the  most  powerful  in 
numbers  and  resources  referred  to  by  the  old  Span- 
ish historians,  he  says :  "  They  live  in  the  same 
homes  to-day  as  then,  and  occupy  much  the  same 
land  now  as  then.  They  are  little  if  any  better 
off  in  lands,  property,  numbers,  and  comforts  now 
than  they  were  three  hundred  years  ago."  As  a 
sample  pueblo,  our  officer  of  the  United  States 
Army,  who  has  studied  his  theme  on  the  ground 
as  well  as  in  the  library,  thus  refers  to  Acoma,  a 
pueblo  :  "  Inhabited  since  history  began,  it  seems 
the  same  place  to-day  as  described  three  hundred 
and  thirty  years  ago,  —  has  gained  nothing,  nor 
lost  in  any  respect  its  ancient  features."  Covering 
the  Pueblo  and  Aztec  population  generally,  the 
same  authority  adds:  ""VVe  should,  at  the  first 
thought,  have  expected  to  have  found  some  of  the 

1  A  Political  Problem  :  New  Mexico  ami  the  New  Mexicans. 
By  an  Officer  of  the  Armj'.    1876.    p.  2. 


192  WILD    LIFE   ON    THE    BORDER. 

blessings  of  civilization  and  Christianity.  But 
witli  this  delineation  of  the  true  character  of  their 
religion  we  must  conclude  our  premise  wrong.  In 
the  Pueblo  communities  themselves  it  is  known 
that  the  ancient  belief  and  the  ancient  rites  have 
always  been  preserved,  and  are  to-day  kept  up 
with  a  pretended  acquiescence  in  the  ritual  of  the 
established  Church."  Eeferring  to  the  civil,  moral, 
and  religious  influences  of  the  United  States  there 
since  it  became  a  part  of  our  dominion,  he  con- 
cludes with  this  mild  statement,  so  mortifying  and 
reproving  to  our  methods  of  administering  Chris- 
tianity :  "  No  sign  has  been  exhibited,  in  twenty-six 
years,  of  the  adoption  of  our  ideas  of  civilization, 
or  of  amendment  of  their  points  of  variance."  ^ 

These  quoted  remarks  apply  equally  well  to 
Arizona  as  to  New  Mexico.  The  original  popula- 
tion is  Mexican  or  Aztec, —  synonymous  terms, — 
and  pueblos  are  simply  Mexican  or  Aztec  villa- 
gers living  on  reservations,  with  a  communistic 
house,  more  or  less  walled,  for  defence.  The  rest 
of  the  population,  equally  Aztec,  is  diffused 
through  tlie  country  in  various  pursuits.  Of  tlie 
pueblos  proper,  as  walled  towns,  about  twenty-five 
are  extant.  Many  are  abandoned  of  population, 
the  last  of  which  was  Pecos.  If  the  Pueblos  dif- 
fer from  the  rest  of  the  Mexicans  on  either  side  of 
the  Eio  Grande,  it  is  in  having  retained  a  purer 
Aztec  blood  and  morals,  and  more  of  the  charac- 

1  A  Political  Problem,  pp.  29,  17,  23,  30,  31. 


WILD   LIFE   OX   THE   BORDER.  193 

teristics  which  marked  the  race  before  the  invasion 
of  Europeans.  So  far  as  yet  appears,  ethnologi- 
cally  the  Aztecs  are  a  race  distinct  from  the  North 
American  Indians ;  though  this  name,  Indian,  is 
loosely  given  to  the  more  uncivilized  portions  of 
them  in  Mexico,  as  well  as  in  New  Mexico  and 
Arizona. 

Such  is  one  section  of  our  wild  American  bor- 
der, pagan  and  Christian  in  its  religion ;  as  to  the 
natives,  pagan  and  medieeval  in  its  civilization 
wlien  annexed  to  the  United  States  ;  and  strangely 
neglected  afterward  in  our  home  and  foreign 
schemes  and  expenditures  for  educating  and  Chris- 
tianizing the  unfortunate  and  degraded.  It  was 
left  for  railroad  enterprise  to  carry  the  nineteenth 
and  Christian  century  into  our  conquered  and 
annexed  Southwest. 

This  condition  of  civil  and  social  and  moral 
life  on  the  frontier,  which  we  have  been  outlining, 
does  not  seem  surprising  to  the  thoughtful,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  quite  natural  and  reasonable.  What 
otherwise  can  be  expected  ?  For  two  hundred 
years,  and  especially  for  the  last  one  hundred,  since 
the  Revolution  into  independence  opened  the  way 
west,  and  stimulated  the  emigrating  propensities 
of  the  Americans,  we  have  rushed  over  the  bor- 
der. When  the  Republic  was  born,  a  thousand 
personal,  individual,  and  sovereign  interests  were 
born,  and  a  boundless  interior  invited  to  their 
development.      History   has    no    parallel    to    the 

13 


194  AYILD    LIFE   ON    TIIH   BOUDHll. 

American  migration  of  this  current  century.  But 
it  was  building  tlie  State  out  into  open  space. 
The  deep  soil  and  the  minerals,  the  mountains 
and  prairies  and  forests  and  rivers,  and  the  skies  of 
God  were  the  raw  material,  and  on  tlie  building-lot. 
The  State  is  yet  to  come,  and  must  be  built  on  the 
ground.  It  cannot  be  immigrant,  while  its  found- 
ers must  be.  It  can  no  more  be  moved  out  from 
the  old  East,  as  by  a  colony  in  an  emigrant  train, 
than  the  old  Pilgrim  wells  of  Plymouth  and 
Salem.  The  State  is  an  autocthon,  though  of 
imported  germs.  It  comes  of  society,  which 
in  a  new  country  is  composed  of  the  imported 
fragments  of  an  old  disintegrated  society,  which 
fragments,  on  the  new  building  ground,  we  call 
immigrants.  These  fragments  have  gone  west,  as 
individuals  and  families,  disintegrating  and  re- 
ducing some  of  the  old  States,  as  Maine  and  New 
Hampshire.  Betw^een  1860  and  1870  they  did 
not  hold  their  own,  but  fell  off  in  population  from 
emigration.  Between  1850  and  1860  Vermont 
barely  held  her  own,  from  the  same  cause. 

Now,  as  to  deterioration  in  this  new  society 
which  is  to  build  the  State  on  the  border,  con- 
sider how  much  of  the  man  is  left  behind  when 
one  emigrates.  He  carries  with  him  his  qualities 
but  not  his  character,  as  the  transplanted  tree 
carries  its  label  and  its  branches,  but  only  a  part 
of  its  roots,  which  hold  its  vitality  and  strength. 
As  he  makes  a  new  farm,  or  business,  or  dwelling- 


AVILD    LIFE    OX   THE   BOKDER.  195 

house,  he  must  make  a  new  reputation,  or  power 
to  do.  At  this  stage  many  emigrants  reveal  a 
liumiliating  weakness.  They  have  been  indebted 
to  society  more  than  they  or  their  old  neighbors 
were  conscious  of,  for  their  good  name  and  general 
usefulness.  They  have  stood  upright  in  their  old 
surroundings,  because  not  required  to  stand  alone. 
Traditions,  ambitions,  honorable  relations,  fears  of 
failure  and  shame,  virtues  enforced  by  surround- 
ings, as  cheaper  than  vices,  have  in  the  old  home 
of  childhood  braced  them  up  to  an  erectness. 
These  favorable  surroundings  do  not  emigrate  with 
a  man  when  he  crosses  the  Ohio  or  Missouri. 
Many  a  timber  has  no  dishonor  in  the  old  house, 
but  is  a  poor  stick  in  rebuilding.  Common  law, 
civil  law,  genial  neighborhood  benedictions,  the 
schoolhouse  and  the  church  do  not  emigrate. 
These  must  be  built  into  the  new  settlement  as 
truly  as  the  highway  and  farm  and  bridge.  The 
intellectual  and  literary  atmosphere  which  the 
body  politic  must  breathe,  to  be  vigorous  and 
well-toned,  is  not  native  to  the  virgin  forests  and 
prairies  and  mountains  of  the  coveted  West.  The 
school  and  the  academy  and  tlie  college,  with  their 
historic  playgrounds  and  ancestral  avenues  and 
classic  associations, — great  factors,  in  making  noble 
men  and  women,  —  come  slowly  on  the  border. 

In  all  these  unfavorable  circumstances  perils 
come  promptly.  In  the  passage  from  the  old  to 
the  new,  in  the  disintegration,  removal,  and  recon- 


196  ^V1LD    LIFE    ON    THE   BOUDER. 

strncti(in,  a  thousand  miles  into  the  interior,  witli 
so  much  of  good  and  indispensable  inevitably  left 
behind,  a  civil,  social,  and  moral  relapse  in  the 
building  of  the  new  state  is  a  painful  and  neces- 
sary certainty.  For  civilization  has  its  laws  of 
decline  as  well  as  of  growth.  Until  the  unemi- 
grating  and  indispensable  qualities  for  the  higher 
civilization  which  crowned  society  in  the  old 
thirteen  states  can  be  produced  for  the  new  state, 
on  the  new  ground,  there  must  be  decline.  The 
second  generation  will  fall  below  the  first,  possibly 
the  third  below  the  second,  in  the  stronger,  nobler, 
and  sweeter  elements  of  the  family  and  of  the 
public.  This  decline  will  sometiines  show  itself 
in  a  loose  undervaluing  of  education,  or  in  a  low 
pride  in  the  unrefined,  or  in  a  contempt  for  what 
is  delicate  in  taste  and  feeling.  The  amusements, 
also,  will  usually  indicate  this  retrograde,  by  as- 
suming more  of  a  coarse,  physical,  semi-animal 
and  semi-vicious  character.  All  such  is  a  hint 
that  decivilization  is  going  on,  and  the  ease  and 
rapidity  of  such  tendencies  are  surprising  to  one 
who  has  not  observed  or  studied  them.  Civiliza- 
tion is  an  acquisition  or  conquest  over  nature, 
obtained  with  struggle  and  held  by  perpetual 
vigilance. 

These  decivilizing  causes  and  retrograde  ten- 
dencies on  the  border  are  outlined  here  in  no  way 
of  reflection  or  reproach  on  our  pioneer  belt  of 
citizens.      They  are  perils  incidpnt   to    the  emi- 


WILD    LIFE   ON    THE   BORDER.  197 

grating,  dissolved,  and  reconstructing  stage  of 
society,  inevitable,  and  inseparable  from  the  mi- 
gratory state.  Those  who  take  the  republic  in 
their  hands  thus  to  enlarge  it,  and  who,  therefore, 
necessarily  incur  these  disadvantages  and  perils, 
not  always  successfully,  are  entitled  to  our  sym- 
pathy, and  to  our  honor  even,  in  some  failures. 
As  usually  the  strongest  and  most  energetic  emi- 
grate, they  have  probably  done  what  the  best 
would  have  done. 

When  we  add  to  this  exposed  class  the  emi- 
grants of  fortune,  and  the  American  nomads  of  the 
border,  who  pour  contempt  on  education  and  so- 
ciety and  law  and  morals,  and  add  also  the  crimi- 
nal tramps  and  desperadoes  of  a  new  country,  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  state  is  to  be  builded  with 
great  difficulties  on  our  frontier,  as  we  constantly 
crowd  it  along  into  a  farther  wilderness.  When, 
in  the  first  stage  of  the  Marietta  Colony  under 
Putnam,  they  wrote  out  an  extempore  code  of 
laws,  and  posted  it  on  the  trees  around  their  rude 
cabins,  the  temptations  and  proclivities  were  strong 
toward  a  government  as  rough  and  rude  as  their 
cabins,  and  only  the  exceptionally  high  tone  of 
the  settlers  saved  them  from  it.  For  when  there 
is  no  king  in  Israel,  and  every  one  is  left  to  do 
what  is  right  in  his  own  eyes,  there  is  a  good  open- 
ing toward  anarchy  and  barbarism,  and  all  the 
more  if  in  a  country  in  the  wild  and  unsubdued 
state  of  nature. 


198  WILD    J.IFK   ON    TUK    linRDKU. 

Illuslralive  cases  are  uot  wanting  in  history  to 
show  what  has  here  been  said.  Spain  sent  her 
best  blood  and  high  Castihan  civilization  into  her 
New  Spain.  True,  it  was  of  the  sixteenth  century ; 
but  then  Europe  had  nothing  better  to  offer  for 
ccdonial  founders  than  those  knightly  and  courtly 
generals  and  civilians.  In  their  wilderness  homes 
they  fell  away  from  their  Castilian  breeding  and 
ambitions,  and  their  posterity  and  their  institutions 
compromised  witli  the  natives  on  midway  grounds, 
and  now  but  few  remnants  and  faint  memories  of 
that  hi<i[h  origin  can  be  discovered. 

Not  far  from  the  time  wlien  Jamestown  and 
Plymouth  and  Salem  were  being  founded,  and 
the  American  Commonwealths  were  germinating, 
high  Protestants,  and  of  the  strictest  type,  left  Hol- 
land to  colonize  South  Africa.  Better  blood  and 
principles,  civil  and  religious,  were  not  abundant  in 
Europe.  The  Netherlands,  as  the  colonial  mother, 
then  led  on  the  high  seas,  and  her  children  were 
not  left  to  want,  until  the  adverse  combinations  of 
the  seventeenth  century  turned  off  those  colonists 
to  a  kind  of  orphanage.  Then  came  a  relapse,  and 
uncivilized  nature  began  to  claim  her  wild  rights. 
The  virgin,  rich  country,  and  surrounding  and 
intermingling  savage  tribes,  the  border  Indians  of 
their  frontier,  turned  that  old  Dutch  energy  into 
daring  recklessness.  Then,  stooping  lower  and 
still  lower,  they  became  a  temptation  and  a  prey 
to  British  ambitions  and  invasions ;  and  imported 


WILD    LIFE   ON   THE   BORDER.  199 

governors,  by  their  humiliating  and  oppressive  ad- 
ministrations, hastened  their  apostasy  from  the 
civilization  of  their  ancestors  of  the  Ehine  and  the 
Zuyder  Zee  and  Amsterdam.  They  afiiliated  with 
the  natives  and  barbarized  themselves.  When  their 
English  invaders,  in  struggles  at  subjugation,  drove 
them  from  one  border  to  another,  and  attempted 
to  win  the  Caffre  aborigines  to  British  loyalty  by 
Christian  baptism,  they  turned  away  from  that 
type  of  Christianity  with  contempt.  They  came 
to  a  pause  in  their  decivilizing  tendencies  when 
freedom  for  this  Dutch  blood  was  secured,  af- 
ter many  fierce  struggles,  but  they  paused  on  a 
level  much  below  their  original  and  colonial  one. 
"  They  are  now  a  race  of  nominally  Christian  bar- 
barians, —  barbarians  under  the  Synod  of  Dort ;  a 
standing  proof  that  Protestants,  and  they,  too,  of 
the  Saxon  blood,  may  drop  out  of  civilization,  and 
take  their  place  on  the  same  level  of  ignorance 
and  social  brutality  with  the  barbarous  tribes  of 
the  earth.  Let  no  American  that  loves  his  country 
refuse  to  heed  the  example."  ^ 

1  Barbarism  the  First  Danger.     Bv  Horace  Bushnell,  D.D. 


200  PIONEERING    IN    EDUCATION. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

PIONEERING   IN    EDUCATION. 

IT  was  very  fortunate  that,  when  the  young 
American  Republic  made  that  great  advance 
into  the  Northwest  Territory,  it  was  started  among 
the  schoolhouses  of  the  New  England  pattern. 
At  the  second  meeting  of  tlie  Ohio  Company, 
March  5,  1788,  it  was  voted  "  That  the  Directors 
be  requested  to  pay  as  early  attention  as  possible 
to  the  education  of  youth." 

When,  in  July  following,  the  territorial  govern- 
ment was  proclaimed  by  Governor  St.  Clair,  one 
ordinance  declared  that  "  schools  and  the  means  of 
education  shall  forever  be  encouraged."  The  fact 
is  to  be  held  in  the  perpetual  and  grateful  remem- 
brance of  this  Ohio  Company,  that  they  originated 
the  usage  of  setting  apart  a  certain  portion  of  the 
wild  lands  of  the  Government  for  the  support  of 
public  schools.  The  act  took  a  modified  form  in 
the  Congress  of  1803,  by  which  certain  parcels  of 
land  were  so  set  apart,  first,  in  the  United  States 
Military  Tract,  and  in  tlie  Connecticut  Reserve, 
and  in  the  Virginia  Military  Reservation,  —  all 
in  the  Ohio.     Then  the  act  proceeds  to  set  apart 


PIO^'EEl.'IXG    IN    EDUCATION.  201 

"  one  thirty-sixth  part  of  all  tlie  lauds  of  the  Uiiiled 
States,  lying  in  the  State  of  Ohio,"  certain  condi- 
tions being  appended.  When,  three  years  later. 
Congress  had  next  an  occasion  to  recognize  this 
Ohio  scliool  policj/'  while  framing  a  territorial 
government  for  the  new  Territory  of  Louisiana, 
it  incorporated  the  theory  and  practice  into  the 
organic  structure  of  the  Territory.  From  that  time 
onward,  as  new  Territories  and  States  have  en- 
larged the  American  Union,  the  general  Govern- 
ment  has  distinctly  and  constitutionally  said  to 
each,  "  Schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall 
forever  be  encouraged."  Prior  to  1848  every  six- 
teenth section  of  public  land  in  every  township, 
in  any  State  admitted  was  reserved  for  the  in- 
terests of  the  public  school.  After  that  date  the 
amount  reserved  was  doubled,  and  Sections  16  and 
36  were  reserved.^  When  Wyoming,  the  last  Ter- 
ritory to  be  organized,  was  added  in  1868,  it  was 
enacted  "That  sections  numbered  16  and  36  in 
each  township  in  said  Territory  shall  be,  and  the 
same  are  hereby  reserved  for  the  purposes  of  being 
applied  to  public  schools  in  the  State  or  States  here- 
after to  be  erected  out  of  the  same."  Almost  in 
identical  words  from  the  first,  and  to  each  new 
member,  as  Illinois,  Arkansas,  Utah,  and  New  Mex- 
ico, this  has  been  said  ;  and  so  the  basis  for  public- 
school  education  has  been  laid  by  the  foresight  of 

1  Public  Domain :  A  Public  Document.     By  Thomas  Donald- 
son.    Washington.     1884.     p.   223. 


202  noxEEUiXG  in  epucatiox. 

the  national  Government  in  the  full  persuasion  tliat 
the  public  school  is  indispensable  to  a  republic. 

With  two  exceptions  this  wise  policy  of  the 
Government  has  prevailed  whenever  new  country 
has  been  added  to  the  national  domain,  or  any 
unorganized  portion  of  it  has  been  placed  under 
territorial  or  state  government.  Alaska  is  one  of 
the  exceptions,  since  it  yet  lias  no  territorial  gov- 
ernment. Texas  is  the  other,  which  came  into  the 
Union  as  a  foreign  and  sovereign  State,  so  that 
the  United  States  made  in  it  no  acquisition  of 
public  lands. 

As  fast  as  Indian  titles  to  lands  have  been  ex- 
tinguished, and  the  lands  so  gained  have  been 
exposed  to  public  sale,  this  reservation  and  proviso 
have  prevailed.  On  the  assumption  that  each  new 
township  embraces  thirty-six  square  miles,  and 
that  each  mile  is  numbered  on  a  prescribed  plan, 
numbers  sixteen  and  thirty-six  are  reserved  for 
schools. 

The  scope  and  power  of  this  Ohio  Company  pro- 
viso, as  one  dwells  a  little  on  it,  run  off  into  the  sub- 
lime. All  American  children  are  born  heirs  to  an 
interest  and  right  in  a  public  education.  Theoreti- 
cally, neither  poverty  nor  the  wilderness  can  be  a 
bar  to  the  privilege,  but  practically  there  are  some 
serious  and  adverse  conditions.  Eeference  has  been 
made  in  the  chapter  "  Ancient  Chicago "  to  the 
student  life  of  the  Kinzie  boy  in  Chicago  in  1810, 
and  to  the  private  school  of  Mr.  Watkins  there,  in 


PIONEERING    IN    EDUCATION.  203 

an  old  stable,  in  1832,  and  to  the  private  scliool  of 
Miss  Chappel  and  Miss  Barrows,  about  the  same 
time.  This  region  was  covered  by  the  original 
provision  for  public  schools,  based  on  the  public 
lands  ;  but  the  system  was  of  slow  growth,  and  had 
not  yet  practically  arrived  at  Chicago.  In  1841 
the  private  English  and  Classical  School  of  the 
writer  was  a  fair  type  of  tlie  provisions  for  educa- 
tion in  St.  Louis  and  other  leading  towns  west  of 
the  Mississippi.  Private  enterprise  furnished  the 
opportunities. 

At  first  thought  one  would  expect  better  educa- 
tional provisions  in  the  ancient  Upper  Louisiana, 
and  in  that  old  Franco-Spanish  and  English  city 
of  1764  But  one  must  remember  that  the  great 
valley  had  a  Papal  planting,  and  it  was  then  no 
theory  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  educate  the 
masses.  Indeed,'  an  early  colonial  governor  of 
Virginia,  Protestant  as  he  was,  thanked  God  that 
there  were  no  public  schools  in  the  Old  Domin- 
ion. Writing  of  the  state  of  education  in  Louis- 
iana in  1791,  Monette  says  :  "Heretofore  but  little 
attention  had  been  given  to  education  in  Louisiana. 
Schools  were  few,  and  confined  exclusively  to  the 
wealthy,  or  were  under  the  control  of  the  clergy, 
where  the  expenses  of  education  effectually  ex- 
cluded the  great  mass  of  the  people.  The  only 
school  in  New  Orleans  was  one  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  priests,  taught  by  a  few  Spanish 
nuns.  .  .  .  During  the  autumn  of  1791,  however. 


204  PIONEERING   IN    EDUCATION. 

a  nuiiiber  ot"  French  refugees  from  the  massacre 
of  St.  ])oiniiigo  arrived  iu  New  Orleans,  and  be- 
ing destitute  of  property,  were  compelled  to  seek 
a  livelihood  in  the  cai)acity  of  teacliers.  Many 
of  them,  being  well  educated,  became  valuable 
citizens  of  Louisiana,  and  contributed  greatly  to 
the  subsequent  introduction  of  schools  in  the 
Province."  ^ 

At  this  time  New  Orleans  contained  a  popula- 
tion of  about  six  thousand. 

The  control  of  education  in  Louisiana,  as  in  all 
Papal  countries,  was  conceded  to  the  sacred  or- 
ders, and  the  nuns  had  charge  of  much  of  it,  as  an 
outside  work  of  mercy.  ]\Iajor  Stoddard,  wlio  re- 
ceived the  Province  of  Upper  Louisiana  from  Spain 
for  France,  as  the  commissioned  representative  of 
the  latter,  and  who  under  his  connnission  deliv- 
ered the  territory  the  next  day  to  the  agent  of  the 
United  States,  and  who  at  the  same  time  entered 
on  his  office  as  civil  and  military  commandant  of 
Upper  Louisiana,  makes  these  remarks  concerning 
the  Ursuline  Convent  in  New  Orleans :  "  At- 
tached to  the  convent  is  a  small  house,  contain- 
ing three  rooms,  divided  longitudinally  from  each 
other  by  double  gratings  about  six  inches  asunder, 
with  apertures  about  two  inches  square,  where 
strangers  may  see  and  converse  with  the  nuns  and 
boarders  on  particular  business.  .  .  .  Near  to  the 

^  Mouette's  History  of  tlie  Mississippi  Valley,  vol.  i.  pp.  480, 
481. 


PIONEERING   IN    EDUCATION.  205 

main  building  [convent],  and  on  the  street,  stands 
an  old  schoolhouse,  where  the  female  children  of 
citizens  appear  at  fixed  hours  to  be  gratuitously 
instructed  in  writing,  reading,  and  arithmetic."  ^ 

Some  similar  and  slight  provision  was  at  the 
same  time  elsewhere  made  for  a  free  boys'  school. 
The  same  author  says  of  the  whole  province  :  "  The 
public  treasury  advanced  but  little  money  for  the 
support  of  seminaries  of  learning ;  no  laws  w^ere  ever 
made  to  compel  the  inliabitants  to  maintain  schools. 
Even  in  New  Orleans,  the  capital  of  the  Province, 
two  schools  only  were  patronized  by  public  author- 
ity. .  .  .  The  Ursuline  Nuns  usually  received 
$600  per  annum  from  the  public,  and  this  sum, 
together  with  avails  of  about  one  thousand  acres 
of  land  belongino-  to  the  convent,  enabled  them  to 
educate  twelve  female  orphans.  .  .  .  There  were 
also  some  private  schools  in  the  city,  but  they 
were  of  no  great  use.  The  settlements  at  a  dis- 
tance from  the  capital  were  still  worse  provided, 
and  a  person  who  could  read  and  write  was 
considered  as  a  kind  of  prodigy  among  them." 
In  the  college  of  priests  at  Kaskaskia  "  scho- 
lastic divinity  afforded  almost  the  only  subject  of 
investigation."  ^ 

This  educational  system  of  the  old  Louisiana, 
shown  in  its  best  estate  in  New  Orleans,  was  Euro- 

^  Sketches,    Historical   and  Descriptive,    of  Louisiana.      By 
Major  Amos  Stoddavd.     1812.     pp.  152,   154,  155. 
-  Ibid.,  pp.  308,  309. 


206  PIONEERING   IN   EDUCATION. 

peau  and  mediaeval,  and  totally  foreign  to  the 
American  genius.  Tlie  city  itself  was  of  the  same 
type  of  civilization,  and  it  was  a  walled  town  with 
four  gates.  These  were  shut  every  night  at  nine, 
and  after  that  hour  no  one  was  permitted  to  walk 
the  streets  without  leave  from  the  governor. 

The  same  theory  and  practice  in  matters  of  edu- 
cation prevailed  at  the  same  time  in  the  Canadas. 
"  All  education  was  controlled  by  priests  and 
nuns.  The  ablest  teachers  in  Canada  were  the 
Jesuits.  Tlieir  college  of  Quebec  was  tliree  years 
older  than  Harvard.  .  .  .  They  were  taught  a  little 
Latin,  a  little  rhetoric,  and  a  little  logic;  but 
against  all  that  might  rouse  the  faculties  to  inde- 
pendent action  the  Canadian  schools  prudently 
closed  their  doors.  .  .  .  The  true  purpose  of  the 
schools  was  —  first,  to  make  priests,  and  secondly, 
to  make  obedient  servants  of  the  Church  and  the 
King  ;  all  the  rest  was  extraneous,  and  of  slight 
account."  About  1720  a  printing-press  was  brought 
into  Canada,  but  was  soon  sent  out  again.^ 

It  will  readily  be  seen  what  a  change  must  have 
come  over  that  imperial  addition  to  the  Union  — 
more  than  doubling  its  area  —  when  it  was  added 
to  the  United  States,  and  came  under  the  same 
beneficent  and  patriotic  provisions  for  universal 
public  instruction.  At  the  same  time  the  Terri- 
tory offered  a  most  inviting  opening  for  the  theory 

1  The  Old  Regime  in  Canada.  By  Francis  Parkman.  pp. 
359,  360. 


riONEEKING   IX    EDUCATION.  207 

and  practice  of  sucli  a  system  of  popular  education 
as  would  meet  the  necessities  of  a  republican  gov- 
ernment with  its  free  ballot.  One  or  two  genera- 
tions must  pass  away  before  the  scheme  could  be 
intelligently  appi'ehended.  To  this  prior  condi- 
tion is  due  in  part  the  fact  that  tlie  per  cent  of 
those  unable  to  read  is  as  high  as  twenty-eight, 
and  of  those  unable  to  write,  thirty-eight  in  every 
one  hundred  in  Arkansas,  and  twenty-four  and 
twenty-nine  in  Texas,  and  sixty  and  sixty-live  in 
New  Mexico,  while  it  is  only  four  and  seven  in  a 
hundred  in  Illinois. 

It  needs  this  statement  of  the  almost  total  neg- 
lect of  education  in  the  ancient  Louisiana,  soon 
to  come  into  the  Union,  to  show  the  utility  and 
scope  of  the  fundamental  provision  for  popular  and 
universal  instruction,  introduced  by  the  Ohio  Com- 
pany, and  which  crossed  the  Mississippi  with  the 
American  flag. 

Of  course  an  incident  mentioned  by  Bradbury 
is  not  typical,  but  it  is  illustrative,  of  the  popular 
ignorance  prevalent  in  the  early  part  of  this  cen- 
tury on  the  frontier.  Mr.  Bradbury  and  company 
were  in  New  Madrid  and  vicinity  in  1811,  during 
the  earthquake  which  was  so  destructive,  and  they 
experienced  much  of  the  force  of  it,  and  afterward 
went  among  the  stricken  people  and  the  ruins. 
"  One  of  the  men,"  he  says,  "  who  appeared  to  be 
considered  as  possessing  more  knowledge  than 
the  rest,  entered  into  an  explanation  of  the  cause 


208  nONREUING   IN   EDUCATKDX. 

of  the  eartliquake,  and  attributod  it  to  the  comet 
tliat  had  appeared  a  few  mouths  before,  which  he 
described  as  liaving  two  horns,  over  one  of  which 
the  earth  had  rolled  and  was  now  lodged  betwixt 
tiiem ;  that  the  sliocks  were  occasioned  by  the  at- 
tempts made  by  the  earth  to  snrmount  the  other 
horn.  If  this  shonld  be  accom])lished  all  would 
be  well;  if  otherwise,  inevitable  destruction  to  tlie 
world  would  follow.  Finding  him  confident  in  his 
hypothesis,  and  myself  unable  to  refute  it,  I  did 
not  dispute  the  point."  ^ 

In  those  border  settlements  of  seventy  years  ago 
the  necessaries  of  civilization  came  slowly  and  sin- 
gly, and  they  do  not  totally  otherwise  to-day.  When 
the  way-worn  immigrant  made  a  final  camp  beside 
his  faithful  wagon,  and  turned  loose  his  family  and 
staked  off  his  homestead,  the  comforts  were  all 
ahead,  and  not  all  the  troubles  behind.  The  brush, 
grass,  and  turf  roof  will  give  slielter  for  a  few 
months,  while  he  turns  the  first  furrow,  plants  the 
first  kernels  of  corn  and  spoonful  of  wheat,  digs 
the  first  well,  and  throws  the  first  logs  over  the 
ugly  ford.  By  and  by  he  lays  the  first  shingle, 
and  his  family  eat  their  first  frontier  potato.  Of 
course  the  schoolhouse  comes  tardily  in  the  long 
procession  of  first  things,  where  so  many  need  to 
lead.  Especially  must  this  be  so  in  a  valley  in 
the  great  American  Basin,  recently  visited  by  the 

•  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  North  America  in  1809,  1810, 
1811.     By  John  BradUuy.     p.  206. 


PIONEERING   IN   EDUCATION.  209 

writer,  "u^liere  the  mail  is  delivered  weekly  iu  its 
upper  section,  and  the  nearest  store  for  a  sack  of 
flour,  3'ard  of  tape,  or  cake  of  yeast,  is  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  miles  away. 

A  kind  of  heroism  attaches  to  this  imperative 
provision  of  the  Government  to  secure,  by  the  or- 
ganic laws  of  a  Territory,  the  introduction  of  the 
common-school  system.  A  section  of  this  valley 
belt,  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles  long,  we 
found  without  a  school.  Money  could  be  raised 
for  school  purposes,  and  schools  made  movable 
up  and  down  the  long  and  narrow  districts,  being 
held  in  the  private  cabins  of  the  families,  now 
here  and  now  there,  on  mutual  plans  for  tlie  good 
of  all.  We  lately  found  a  public  school  on  the 
Oregon  Short  Line  Eailroad,  where  only  two  houses 
were  in  sight,  and  the  pupils  came  into  this  lonely 
centre  on  trails  of  six  miles  each  way.  This  splen- 
did American  school  system  seemed  there  as  if 
searching  for  any  American  children  of  school  age, 
like  gravitation  going  at  once  for  any  newly-created 
particles  of  matter. 

Two  or  three  sample  clippings  from  earlier  ex- 
periences and  memory  will  serve  us  as  well  as  a 
long  chapter  to  show  the  pioneer  schoolhouses  of 
the  United  States ;  and  the  school  of  the  frontier 
is  about  the  same  to-day  as  it  was  yesterday,  only 
the  frontier  is  sixteen  miles  farther  west  each 
year. 

It  was  in  a  hazy,  soft,  dreamy  day  in  October, 

14 


210  riUNEElilNG    IN    EDUCATION. 

1840,  when  the  writer  enjoyed  a  saddle  jannt  in 
Sangamon  and  Morgan  counties,  Illinois.  The  ride 
was  without  a  companion,  or  guide,  or  even  trail, 
across  the  prairies.  A  general  point  of  compass, 
the  sun  and  one  or  two  headlands  of  timl)er  run- 
ning out  into  the  world  of  grass,  were  the  only 
aids  to  direction,  —  no  house,  no  fence,  no  furrow, 
nothing  domestic  or  civil.  It  was  as  yet  the  no- 
blest, most  inspiring  ride  of  life.  By  and  by,  in 
one  of  those  timber  islands  or  promontories  lying 
in  the  great  russet  ocean  of  grass,  a  lazy  smoke  was 
seen  to  go  up  from  among  the  trees.  Of  course 
the  inference  was  a  hunter's  camp ;  for  deer  and 
turkey  and  chickens  and  web-feet  were  abundant. 
But  finally  it  proved  to  arise  from  a  log-cabin, 
which,  on  nearer  approach,  showed  neither  window 
nor  door,  but  only  a  dark  vacancy  the  entire  length 
of  one  side,  as  if  a  log  had  fallen  out.  As  I  came 
closer,  this  dark  belt  showed  a  row  of  human  faces 
the  whole  length,  and  drawing  rein  around  the 
corner  a  door  appeared,  and  a  school  inside  !  This 
door  and  another  "window"  on  the  opposite  side, 
like  the  one  described,  admitted  all  the  light. 
The  ground  was  the  floor,  into  which  stakes  were 
driven,  and  on  these  slabs  were  spiked  for  seats. 
Some  of  the  pupils,  like  Ant?eus,  touched  mother 
earth  with  their  feet  in  tlieir  struggle  with  the 
Hercules  of  ignorance,  while  the  little  ones  swung 
for  it.  Books  were  as  scant  as  the  leaves  in  the 
last  edition  of  the   Sibyl  of  Cumse.     It  was  the 


PIONEERING   IN   EDUCATION.  211 

typical  school  of  the  pioneers,  and  the  best  for 
the  times  in  a  frontier  county.  The  f^imilies  were 
on  openings  and  clearings  back  in  the  timber.  Now 
Sangamon  County  has  its  fifty  thousand  people 
and  a  fine  school  system  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
nation,  and  that  log  schoolhouse  would  be  coveted 
for  the  archives  of  the  Illinois  Board  of  Education 
as  a  souvenir  of  early  days.  And  what  would 
seem  strange  if  not  foolish  to  an  Eastern  man,  who 
had  never  crossed  the  Alleghanies,  —  within  a  few 
hours'  ride  of  this  log  schoolhouse  was  a  college. 
Many  New  Englanders  who  were  solicited  to  aid 
in  founding  this  Illinois  College  regarded  the  en- 
terprise as  greatly  in  advance  of  population,  un- 
needed  and  unwise ;  but  the  history  of  this  noble, 
intelligent,  and  Christian  State  confirms  the  wis- 
dom and  foresight  and  statesmanship  of  its  found- 
ers. These  timid  men,  slow  in  their  gifts  and 
limited  in  their  travel,  cannot  appreciate  the  am- 
plitude of  our  Western  domain  and  tlie  wonderful 
growth  of  settlements  in  it.  Nor  do  such  men 
consider  that  Harvard  and  Dartmouth  and  Brown 
and  Yale  were  planted  within  a  very  few  hours' 
saddle-ride  of  log  cabins  and  wigwams. 

When  Harvard  was  founded  in  1638,  and  Yale 
in  1701,  and  Brown  in  1764,  and  Dartmouth  in 
1770,  the  Indians  were  near  to  tliem  and  abun- 
dant, and  the  frontier  was  at  hand  and  wild.  Nor 
was  it  then  high  tide  of  immigration  and  new  set- 
tlements  around  them,  as  around  our  young  West- 


212  nONEEKING   IN   EDUCATION. 

ei'u  colleges  oi"  to-day.  We  do  not  coine  up  yet  to 
the  foresight,  enthusiasm,  benevolence,  and  sacri- 
fice of  the  colonial  fathers  in  planting  institutions 
of  learning  on  the  borders. 

It  is  obvious  why  the  census  of  18G0  showed 
tliat  in  Illinois  there  were  fifty-nine  thousand 
persons  over  ten  years  of  age  who  could  not  read 
and  write,  and  in  Missouri  sixty  thousand,  and  in 
Indiana  sixty-two  thousand.  Here  is  an  evil  inci- 
dental and  inevitable  to  the  frontier.  The  school- 
house  and  the  meeting-house  are  apt  to  move 
slower  than  the  immigrant  army,  but  they  inevita- 
bly arrive. 

Twenty-four  years  after  we  added  New  Mexico 
to  the  Union,  and  when  coming  East  from  the 
mountains  and  from  under  the  shadows  of  Pike's 
Peak,  I  left  Kit  Carson  station  on  the  Kansas 
Pacific  and  ran  south  fifty  miles  over  a  totally  un- 
settled prairie  to  Las  Animas  on  the  Arkansas. 
The  train  was  running  one  car  only,  loaded  with 
pigs  of  silver. 

What  a  home  missionary  a  locomotive  is  in  that 
weird  Southwest !  It  sets  the  drowsy  and  laggard 
Mexican  natives  to  a  double-quick,  establishes 
hours  and  minutes,  carries  in  chairs  and  ploughs 
and  metal  goods  generally,  builds  a  wooden  house, 
plants  the  family,  runs  a  bold  line  between  the 
mediaeval  and  the  modern,  whirls  up  universally 
the  cultivated  and  sacred  dust  of  ages  with  its  own 
engine  smoke ;  and  with  its  short  sharp  whistle, 


PIONEERING    IN    EDUCATION.  213 

as  it  enters  this  sleepy  old  town  of  Montezuma 
and  Coronado  and  Cortez,  it  seems  to  say:  Sit 
lux,  sit  lux. 

When  we  arrived,  the  railroad  had  not  yet 
brought  in  the  public  spelling-book.  Private  en- 
terprise, under  a  lady  from  Indiana,  had  gathered 
forty  pupils,  of  mixed  bloods,  colors,  and  costumes, 
in  a  rough-board  house,  long,  narrow,  and  low, 
and  they  were  entering  into  the  mysteries  and 
powers  of  the  twenty-six  English  letters  and  ten 
Arabic  figures,  —  all  which  work  the  priest  followed 
up  with  warnings  and  maledictions  on  schoolhouse 
heretics. 

The  first  public-school  building  was  then  in 
process  of  construction,  —  a  novelty  to  the  people 
and  an  offence  to  the  clergy,  whose  traditions  and 
usages  and  monopolies  a  Northern  schoolhouse 
was  daring  to  invade.  This  was  almost  a  genera- 
tion after  that  region  had  become  American  terri- 
tory. Nearly  a  generation  had  been  strangely 
neglected  to  grow  up  un-Americanized,  and  the 
private  adventurer  and  the  locomotive  were  the 
untechnical  missionaries  to  open  a  way  for  the  com- 
mon school. 

Educational  and  Christian  philanthropy  in  the 
United  States  has  some  eccentricities,  but  they 
"  lean  to  virtue's  side."  During  those  twenty-four 
years  we  were  using  widows'  mites  and  the  thou- 
sands from  princely  donors  to  open  chapels  and  free 
schools  in  old  Mexico  and  Spain  and  Italy  and 


214  PIONEERING    IN    EDUCATION'. 

France  and  Austria,  —  all  (if  these  Christian  coun- 
tries, —  wliile  we  left  our  own  people,  conquered 
into  citizenship,  under  the  low  type  of  mediceval 
Eonianism  and  Aztec  iicatlienisnr.  It  was  left  for 
the  ranchman  and  miner  and  railway  builders  to 
lead  the  way  for  education  and  reformed  Chris- 
tianity into  that  immense  Southwest,  now  under 
our  tlag.  Perhaps  there  should  be  a  new  proverb, 
—  the  farther  from  home,  the  better  the  deed. 

It  is  the  purpose  to  make  this  chapter  on  Pio- 
neering in  Education  a  miscellaneous  one,  which 
will  present,  by  examples,  hard  fields  and  struggles 
with  illiteracy,  untoward  and  heroic  beginnings, 
and  gratifying  results.  No  doubt  the  educational 
system  of  the  East,  especially  the  common-school 
system,  has  made  great  improvements  in  the  new 
States,  wdiere  they  have  not  been  constrained  to 
a  high  conservatism  and  comfortable  satisfaction 
by  gratifying  memories  that  sometimes  run  into 
atavism. 

No  American  pioneer  has  been  more  daring  than 
a  Western  college.  It  comes  of  an  ancestry  inured 
to  exposure  and  poverty  and  hardship,  when  pecks 
of  corn,  and  pewter  platters,  and  Hebrew  Bibles 
were  thankfully  received  by  the  treasurer  at  Har- 
vard, and  when  burnt  stumps  were  suggestive  of 
Indians  and  bears  at  Dartmouth.  Greek  recita- 
tions and  the  war-whoop  were  almost  near  enough 
together  to  be  mingled  in  our  colonial  colleges. 
So  now  a  colle'ie  of  the   second  or  third   irenera- 


PIONEERING   IN   EDUCATION.  215 

tioii  ill  the  Mississippi  Valley,  or  on  the  Columbia, 
as  Whitman  College  at  Walla  Walla,  is  neither 
timid  nor  retiring  among  the  clearings  and  cabins 
and  Indians.  It  comes  of  a  hardy  race,  whose 
place,  of  right  and  by  inheritance,  is  the  frontier. 
This  was  our  conviction  wlien  we  saw  the  crude 
foundations  of  Illinois  College,  one  remove  only 
from  logs  ;  and  the  shanty  church  where  Iowa  Col- 
lege was  born ;  and  the  mail-bag,  fifteen  inches  by 
eight,  which  carried  on  the  back  of  man  the  out- 
side world  six  miles  over  marsh  and  creek  and 
windfall  timbers  to  Oberlin  College,  as  rouglily 
housed  as  He  of  the  'manger.  And  so  we  felt 
when  we  turned  from  the  charred  and  still  sound 
timbers  of  tlie  Mission,  which  had  fallen  a  prey  to 
the  tomahawk  and  the  flames,  to  visit  Whitman 
College,  five  miles  away. 

There  is  nothing  like  the  bravery,  the  emigrating 
passion,  and  the  vitality  of  letters  among  pro- 
gressive Americans.  The  first  cabin  and  school- 
house  and  church  and  highway  and  college  are 
usually  cliildren  of  the  first  family  settlers  on  a 
good  border.  Of  course  college-planting  is  over- 
done. Overdoing  is  always  the  happy  danger  of 
progress.  It  is  a  characteristic  of  unvitiated  and 
vigorous  nature  to  be  prodigal  of  germs,  as  witness 
the  myriad  seeds  of  one  plant,  or  the  thousands 
of  eggs  of  one  salmon.  Time,  utility,  and  practical 
judgment  leave  the  unneeded  colleges  to  disappear, 
and  soon  the  growing  community  has  only  what 


21G  PIOXEKKING    IN    EDUCATION. 

it  needs.  Germs  are  clieap,  and  the  loss  in  tbetn 
is  slight  compared  with  the  gain  that  has  come  in 
the  stimulus  of  hoping  and  struggling  for  a  college 
and  finally  obtaining  one  really  needed.  In  the 
visions  of  local  speculators  a  proposed  railway  is 
an  elongated  series  of  depots  ;  but  utility  and  good 
sense  thin  them  out,  and  the  thrifty  community 
is  content. 

The  term  "  college  "  is  cheaply  printed,  and  is 
easily  made  to  cover  any  institution  of  literary 
ambition,  Ijut  finally  abides  only  where  it  is  wor- 
thy. Of  many  hundreds  of  those  pretentious 
porticos  for  scholarly  halls,  not  even  the  shadows 
remain,  and  others  yet  barely  cast  a  shadow ;  and, 
on  trial  for  life  or  death,  donors  are  an  excellent 
jury.  I  was  once  invited  to  lecture  on  American 
History  before  a  "  University  "  on  the  border.  The 
"  University  Buildings  "  showed  well  on.  the  cata- 
logue, as  did  the  list  of  the  "  Faculty,"  and  of  the 
students,  repeated  for  as  many  "  Departments  "  as 
they  had  studies.  All  tliis  was  good  for  a  vision  ; 
but  for  the  time  being  tlie  "  University  Build- 
ings "  were  one  low  lean-to  against  a  small  church, 
with  other  pretensions  reduced  to  reality  in  sim- 
ilar proportions.  A  bundle  express  wagon  could 
probably  have  carried  off  the  entire  "  University," 
and,  indeed,  it  did  move  on  afterward. 

The  remark  is  common  in  tlie  old  States  that 
there  are  too  many  colleges  in  the  new  country. 
Two  or  tln'ee  facts  are  not  considered  in  this  state- 


PIONEERING    IN    EDUCATION.  217 

ment,  —  the  breadth  of  territory  between  the  Alle- 
ghanies  and  the  Pacific ;  the  "  colleges  "  of  ambition 
and  pretension  and  vision,  which  have  died  early, 
but  still  live  in  Eastern  memories  (for  the  num- 
ber has  been  reduced  like  Gideon's  army)  ;  tlie 
combination  of  the  high  school,  academy,  and  col- 
lege in  these  institutions  ;  the  co-education  of  the 
sexes  in  them ;  the  fair  patronage  which  each  liv- 
ing and  really  established  college  has,  and  the  long 
distances  between  them.  They  are  not  close  and 
crowded  together  as  Bowdoin  and  Dartmouth 
and  Harvard  and  Brown  and  Yale  and  Amherst 
and  Williams,  —  a  splendid  constellation  of  the 
greater  lights.  If  the  objector  to  their  number 
would  attempt  to  attend  a  few  of  their  consecutive 
commencements,  on  radii  from  St.  Louis  or  Chicago, 
he  would  qualify  his  remark. 

An  hour's  budding  in  the  nursery  will  affect 
the  fruit  market  for  the  next  fifty  years  more  than 
a  week's  grafting  on  old  trees.  It  is  well,  there- 
fore, to  maintain  a  just  and  prudential  proportion 
between  the  benevolent  budding  of  new  and  mar- 
vellously growing  cities  in  the  West  and  the  grafting 
of  ancient  and  perhaps  decaying  ones  in  the  old 
East,  whether  within  or  beyond  the  Atlantic.  Presi- 
dent Quincy,  in  his  "History  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity," says  of  the  founding  of  that  institution:  "  The 
poor  emigrant,  struggling  for  subsistence,  almost 
houseless,  in  a  manner  defenceless,  is  giving  ac- 
cording to  his  means  toward  establishing  for  learn- 


218  riOXKEUIXG    IN    EDUCATION. 

ing  a  resling-pliico,  and  for  science  a  fixed  habi- 
tation, on  the  borders  of  tlie  wilderness.  .  ,  .  No 
rank,  no  order  of  men  is  unrepresented  in  this 
great  crusade  against  ignorance  and  infidelity." 

In  his  "Travels  in  New  England,"  Dwight  helps 
us  toward  a  still  more  apt  parallel  in  founding 
Western  colleges :  "  Within  ten  years  after  the 
little  ilock  huuled  at  Salem,  a  college  was  endowed 
by  them  and  establislied ; "  and  it  is  to  be  added, 
that  within  ten  years  after  the  Indian  scalping  of 
the  pioneer  and  scattered  citizens  of  the  vicinity, 
Carleton  College  was  crowning  the  heads  of  sur- 
viving children  with  the  honors  of  scholarship. 
Only  in  our  growing  West  could  diplomas  crowd 
so  closely  on  scalping-knives,  and  benevolent  in- 
vestments show  so  quick  and  profitable  returns. 

Little  bands,  yet  unknown  in  the  opulent  East, 
and  as  benevolent  as  opulent,  are  now  quietly  draw- 
ing their  educational  lines  of  latitude  and  longitude 
through  the  wild  lands  and  across  the  junctions 
and  centres  of  immigrant  trails,  wisely  presuming 
that  five  hundred  miles  is  too  far  to  send  sons  and 
daughters  to  college.  When  these  educational  sur- 
veyors and  picket  men  for  American  civilization 
appear  for  funds  in  the  East,  appealing  to  our 
noble  men  and  women  who  are  now  having  finan- 
cial success,  and  Mdiose  philanthropy  and  benevo- 
lence and  love  of  country  grow  apace  with  their 
incomes  and  accumulating  legacies,  let  them  be 
welcomed,   even   as  they  are.     Let  these  obscure 


PIONEERING   IN    EDUCATION.  219 

pioneers  of  the  Republic  go  on  with  their  fore- 
castings  and  outlinings  for  needed  foundations  in 
proper  places,  and  when  the  due  time  comes,  and 
they  visit  the  East  for  funds,  they  will  be  welcomed 
with  courtesy.  They  will  see  business  eyes  and  ears 
turned  thoughtfully  toward  their  so-called  openings 
and  calls  of  Providence.  All  Western  appeals  for 
aid  thus  coming  and  scrutinized,  which  facts  are 
made  to  approve,  will  be  lieartily  met.  Such  facts 
are  always  cashed  in  the  East  at  sight.  If  enterprises 
of  the  educational  and  religious  and  missionary  kind 
weaken  in  their  proper  incomes,  it  is  because  the 
facts  have  not  been  officially  filed  and  discreetly 
used  in  drawing  and  in  backing  their  calls.  Good 
Western  paper  for  such  enterprises  is  always  paid 
at  maturity.  If  regret  or  reproach  arise  that  places 
were  not  seasonably  occupied,  and  that  payments 
followed  sadly  behind  promises,  and  tliat  scanty 
supplies,  poor  housing,  and  winter  severities  cut 
short  the  labors  and  lives  of  the  devoted  men  and 
women  of  God,  and  that  Paul  had  occasionally  to 
quit  preaching  for  tent-making,  the  cause  must  not 
be  sought  among  the  donors.  They  are  able  and 
willing  to  meet  all  reasonable  wants  up  to  the 
limits  of  fairly  furnished  information.  Western 
Christians  are  known  to  surpass  the  Eastern  in 
their  benevolent  gifts,  in  proportion  to  their  abil- 
ity, because  they  live  among  the  facts  and  see 
them.  The  same  facts  will  draw  funds  in  the  old 
States  just  in  proportion  as  they  are  presented. 


220  PIONEERING   IN    EDUCATION. 

The  trying  results  of  the  iufelicitous  administra- 
tion of  benevolent  work  must  not  be  charged  to 
tlie  negligence  of  contributors  who  have  usually- 
lived  up  to  the  light  furnished  them. 

Perhaps  a  freer  use  of  Western  ini'ormation  by 
the  living  voice  of  Western  men,  and  by  a  prolific 
press,  would  save  from  stringency  in  benevolent 
finances  and  from  painful  recoveries.  Por  evi- 
dently the  truly  benevolent  do  not  now  give 
according  to  ability,  but  up  to  knowledge  only. 
Many  princely  donations  for  letters  and  religion 
in  the  country  would  doubtless  have  been  be- 
stowed on  younger  and  vastly  more  needy  and 
hopeful  fields,  if  the  donors  had  been  more  broadly 
informed. 

That  was  a  noble  saying  of  a  most  noble  man : 
"  There  is  in  no  part  of  the  country  or  of  the  world 
so  great  call  for  the  means  of  education  as  in  these 
new  States.  These  are  the  fields  and  here  is  the 
deep  and  cpiick  soil  for  the  seeds  of  knowledge  and 
of  virtue,  and  this  is  the  favored  season,  the  very 
springtime  of  sowing  them.  Let  them  be  dissemi- 
nated without  stint.  Let  them  be  scattered  with 
a  bountiful  hand  broadcast."  ^ 

^  Webster  on  Foote's  Resolutions,  second  speech. 


LYNCH  LAW,  221 


CHAPTER  X. 

LYNCH    LAW. 

TWO  men  stood  in  a  saloon  in  Bannack,  Mon- 
tana, in  the  winter  of  1862-63,  disputing 
whether  one  of  them  had  paid  to  the  other  a  cer- 
tain sum  of  money.  "Jeff"  assured  him  that  he 
had  settled  the  debt,  and  thereupon  Jack  said, 
'  Well,  if  it  is  settled,  it  is  all  right,'  but  he  still 
continued  to  refer  to  it  and  kept  reaching  for  his 
pistol.  Plummer,  who  was  present,  told  him  that 
if  he  did  not  behave  himself  he  would  take  him  in 
hand,  for  that  Jeff  liad  settled  the  debt  and  that  he 
[Jack  Cleveland]  ought  to  be  satisfied.  Jeff  [Per- 
kins] went  home  for  his  derringers,  and  while  he 
was  absent.  Jack  Cleveland  boastingly  declared 
that  he  was  afraid  of  none  of  them.  Plummer 
jumped  to  his  feet  instantly,  saying,  '  I  am  tired  of 
this,'  and  drawing  his  pistol,  he  commenced  firing 
at  Cleveland.  The  first  ball  lodged  in  the  beam 
overhead,  where  it  still  remains  [1866].  The  sec- 
ond struck  him  below  the  belt,  and  he  fell  to  his 
knees,  grasping  wildly  at  his  pistol  and  exclaim- 
ing, 'Plummer,  you  won't  shoot  me  when  I'm 
down ; '  to  which  Plummer  replied,  '  No,  get  up  ; ' 


222  LYNCH    LAW. 

and  as  he  staggered  to  his  feet,  he  sliot  liim  a  little 
above  the  heart.  The  bullet,  however,  glanced  on 
the  rib  and  went  round  the  body.  The  next  en- 
tered below  the  eye  and  lodged  in  the  head.  The 
last  missile  went  between  Moore  and  another  man, 
who  was  sitting  on  the  bench.  .  .  .  Singular 
enough  it  must  appear  to  the  inhabitants  of  settled 
communities,  that  a  man  was  being  shaved  in  the 
saloon  at  the  time,  and  neither  he  nor  the  operator 
left  off  business.  Custom  is  everything,  and  fire- 
eating  is  demonstrably  an  acquired  habit." 

"A  Dutchman,  known  as  Dutch  Fred,  was  met 
by  one  of  the  band  [of  Eoad  Agents],  who  ordered 
him  to  throw  up  his  hands,  as  usual.  Finding  he 
had  $5  in  treasury  notes  with  him,  the  robber  told 
him  he  would  take  them  at  par,  and  added,  with  a 
volley  of  curses,  '  If  ever  you  come  this  way  with 
only  five  dollars  I  '11  shoot  you.  1  '11  shoot  you 
anyhow,'  and  raising  his  pistol  he  shot  him  in  the 
arm." 

"In  March,  1863,  Charley  Reeves,  a  prominent 
'  clerk  of  St.  Nicholas,'  bought  a  Sheep-Eater 
squaw ;  but  she  refused  to  live  with  him,  alleging 
that  she  was  ill-treated,  and  went  back  to  her  tribe, 
who  were  encamped  on  the  rise  of  the  hill,  south  of 
Yankee  Flat,  about  fifty  yards  to  the  rear  of  the 
street.  Reeves  went  after  her,  and  sought  to  force 
her  to  come  back  with  him,  but  on  his  attempting 
to  use  violence,  an  old  chief  interfered.  The  two 
grappled.    Reeves,  with  a  sudden  effort,  broke  from 


LYNCH    LAW.  223 

him,  striking  him  a  blow  with  his  pistol,  and  in 
the  scuffle  one  l:)arrel  was  harmlessly  discharged. 
The  next  evening  Moore  and  Eeeves,  in  a  state  of 
intoxication,  entered  Goodrich's  saloon,  laying  down 
two  double-barrelled  shot-guns  and  four  revolvers 
on  the  counter.  They  declared,  while  drinking, 
that  if  the  cowardly  white  folks  on  Yankee  Flat 
were  afraid  of  the  Indians  they  were  not,  and  that 
they  would  soon  '  set  the  ball  a-rolling.'  Taking 
their  weapons  they  went  off  to  the  back  of  the 
house,  opposite  the  camp,  and  levelling  their 
pieces,  they  fired  into  the  tepee,  wounding  one  In- 
dian. They  returned  to  the  saloon  and  got  three 
drinks  more,  boasting  of  what  they  had  done,  and 
accompanied  by  William  Mitchell  of  Minnesota, 
and  two  others,  they  went  back,  determined  to 
complete  their  murderous  work.  The  three  above 
named  then  deliberately  poured  a  volley  into  the 
tepee,  with  fatal  effect.  Mitchell,  whose  gun  was 
loaded  with  an  ounce  ball  and  a  charge  of  buck- 
shot, killed  a  Frenchman  named  Brissette,  who  had 
run  up  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  the  first  firing,  the 
ball  striking  him  in  the  forehead  and  the  bucksliot 
wounding  him  in  ten  different  places.  The  Indian 
chief,  a  lame  Indian  boy,  and  a  pappoose  were  also 
killed,  but  the  number  of  the  parties  who  were 
wounded  has  never  been  ascertained.  John  Burnes 
escaped  with  a  broken  thumb,  and  a  man  named 
Woods  was  shot  in  the  groin,  of  which  wound  he 
has  not  yet  entirely  recovered.     This  unfortunate 


'224:  LYNCH    L.VW. 

])aii',  like  Brissette,  had  come  to  see  the  cause  of 
the  shooting  and  of  the  yells  of  the  savages.  The 
murderers  being  told  that  they  had  killed  white 
men,  Moore  replied,  with  great  scmr/  froid,  '  They 
had  no  business  there.' " 

"  A  man  had  been  whipped  for  larceny  near 
Nevada  City  [Montana],  and  to  escape  the  sting  of 
the  lash  he  offered  to  give  information  about  the 
Hoad  Agents.  Ives  heard  of  it,  and  meeting  him 
l^urposely  between  Virginia  and  Dempsey's,  he 
deliberately  fired  at  him  with  his  double-barrelled 
gun.  The  gun  was  so  badl}^  loaded  and  the  man's 
coat  so  thickly  padded  that  the  buckshot  did  not 
take  effect ;  upon  which  he  coolly  drew  his  re- 
volver, and  talking  to  him  all  the  time,  shot  him 
dead.  Tiiis  deed  was  perpetrated  in  the  broad 
daylight  on  a  highway,  a  very  Bloomingdale  road 
of  the  community,  in  plain  view  of  Daley's  and 
the  Cold  Spring  Eanch,  with  two  or  three  other 
teams  in  sight." 

William  Palmer  found  two  men  in  the  wakiup 
and  "  told  them  that  there  was  the  body  of  a  dead 
man  below,  and  asked  them  if  they  would  help 
him  to  put  the  corpse  into  his  wagon,  saying  tliat 
he  would  take  it  to  town  and  see  if  it  could  be 
identified.  They  said,  'No,  that  is  nothing.  They 
kill  people  in  Virginia  every  day,  and  there 's  noth- 
ing said  about  it,  and  we  want  to  have  nothing  to 
do  with  it.'  The  man  lay  for  half  a  day  exposed 
in  the  wagon  after  being  brought  up  to  Nevada." 


LYNCH   LAW.  225 

"  At  the  latter  end  of  the  month  of  November, 
1863,  Oliver's  Salt  Lake  coach,  driven  by  Thomas 
C.  Caldwell,  left  Virginia  for  Salt  Lake  City, 
carrying  as  passengers  Leroy  Southmayde  and 
Captain  Moore.  There  was  also  a  discharged 
driver  named  Billy.  ...  At  about  eleven  A.  M. 
the  travellers  overtook  the  three  Eoad  Agents. 
Each  one  had  his  gun  lying  over  his  left  arm,  and 
they  appeared,  from  behind,  like  hunters.  As 
the  stage  came  up  they  wheeled  their  horses  at 
once  and  presented  their  pieces.  Bill  Graves 
drew  a  bead  on  Tom  Caldwell ;  Ives  covered 
Southmayde  ;  while  Bob  Zachary,  keeping  his 
gun  pointed  at  the  coach,  watched  Captain  Moore 
and  Billy.  .  .  .  Ives  called  out,  '  Halt !  throw 
up  your  hands,'  and  then  bade  Zachary  '  get  down 
and  look  after  those  fellows.'  .  .  .  Each  robber 
had  on  a  green  and  blue  blanket,  covering  the 
body  entirely.  Whiskey  Bill  wore  a  plug  hat; 
Lis  sleeves  were  rolled  up  above  the  elbows ;  he 
had  a  black  silk  handkerchief  over  his  face,  with 
holes  for  sight  and  air,  and  he  rode  a  gray  horse 
covered  from  the  ears  to  the  tail  with  a  blanket, 
which,  however,  left  the  head  and  legs  exposed 
to  view.  George  Ives's  horse  was  blanketed  in 
the  same  way.  He  himself  was  masked  with  a 
piece  of  a  gray  blanket  with  the  necessary  perfo- 
rations. Zachary 's  horse  was  blanketed  like  the 
others,  and  his  mask  was  a  piece  of  a  Jersey 
shirt."  All  the  valuables  were  taken  from  each 
15 


22G  LYNCH   LAW. 

person  of  the  coach.  "  Having  finished  his  search, 
Zachary  picked  up  his  gun  and  stepped  back. 
Ives  dismissed  the  '  parade '  with  the  laconic 
command,  '  Get  up  and  skedaddle.' " 

It  has  been  thought  best  to  let  quoted  facts 
speak  for  themselves  on  the  topic  of  this  chapter, 
rather  than  to  present  the  extraordinary  condition 
of  things  in  summary.  The  author  is  fortunate 
in  authentic  material.^  During  those  anxious  and 
critical  times  we  had  also  relatives  in  that  coun- 
try, and  some  extracts  from  their  letters,  written 
in  1884,  here  follow. 

"  My  recollection  of  Professor  Dimsdale's  book 
is,  that  while  there  may  be  a  little  of  the  look  of 
exaggeration,  yet  it  is  about  as  correct  as  you 
could  expect  to  be  written  in  such  a  country, 
and  in  such  times  as  we  had  in  Montana  during 
1864,  1865,  and  along  in  1866.  The  action  of  the 
Vigilantes  was  the  only  means  of  saving  that 
country  from  probably  the  worst  outlaws  that 
ever  cursed  a  country.  And  I  think  that  with 
the  very  many  executed  by  order  of  that  organi- 
zation I  never  heard  of  their  making  a  mistake. 
All  deserved  hanging.  I  had  a  residence  and 
bank  at  Virginia  City,  also  at  Helena.  My  resi- 
dence in  the  Territory  dates  from  the  spring  of 
1864  to  the  fall  of  1866." 

^  The  Vigilantes  of  Jlontana  ;  or,  Popular  Justice  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  By  Tliomas  J.  Dimsdale.  Virginia  City, 
Montana,  1866. 


LYNCH   LAW.  227 

Another  writes :  — 

"  In  regard  to  the  hook,  '  Vigilantes,'  I  can 
vouch  for  it  as  being  in  the  main  correct.  Of 
course  some  of  the  minor  items  are  colored,  hut 
the  book  on  the  whole  is  correct.  I  was  there 
before  the  book  was  written  up,  and  knew  Pro- 
fessor Dimsdale  quite  well  as  editor  of  the  '  Mon- 
tana Post.'  Knew  so  many  who  were  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  workings  of  the  Vigilance 
Committee  that  I  know  whereof  I  speak.  ...  I 
remember  as  if  it  were  yesterday  the  last  work 
the  Committee  did.  .  .  .  They  gave  a  butcher 
thirty-six  lashes  on  the  bare  back,  and  banished 
him,  for  stealing  a  hog  from  a  poor  widow  who 
lived  at  Nevada,  a  small  mining  camp  a  mile 
below  Virginia.  I  saw  none  of  the  murdered  men 
the  book  speaks  of,  nor  did  I  see  any  one  hung ; 
but  I  saw  several  who  were  hanging,  for  it  was 
no  uncommon  thing  to  see  a  man  hanging  to  a 
large  pine-tree  near  the  city.  For  the  first  year 
[1863-64]  I  was  near  Virginia  City.  The  second 
year  I  was  near  Helena,  and  on  the  west  side  of 
the  main  range,  making  several  trips  into  the 
British  Possessions  on  the  north  and  into  Oregon 
on  the  west." 

Two  round  trips  to  Montana,  with  business  resi- 
dence there  during  three  years,  by  a  brother  of 
the  writer,  are  sketched  quite  fully  in  the  "  P)Oston 
Eeview,"  Vols.  V.  and  VL,  1865,  1866,  and  have 


228  LYNCH   LAW. 

been  helpful  in  the  preparation  of  this  chapter. 
Moreover,  now  that  we  are  led  to  prepare  this 
narrative  of  those  wild  times,  we  count  it  a  good 
fortune  and  happy  memory  to  have  travelled  and 
chatted  with  one  of  the  original  Vigilantes  of 
Montana.  It  was  in  a  return  trip  from  the  West 
in  1875,  when  we  formed  his  acquaintance  on  the 
Northern  Pacific.  He  carried  an  unusually  heavy 
hand  and  muscular  arm,  with  no  lack  of  shoulder 
to  hang  and  swing  it,  a  huge  round  head  on  a  short 
bullock  neck,  and  a  mild,  winning,  immovable  face. 
It  is  said  no  one  ever  saw  it  disturbed  by  fear.  In 
a  coach  not  half  filled  he  occupied  two  double 
seats  turned  apart,  and  he  had  eased  himself  by 
laying  two  navy  revolvers  and  his  belt-knife  on 
the  one  front  of  him.  It  pleased  him  that  I 
had  read  of  him  and  had  sought  an  introduction. 
He  was  full  of  experiences  and  information  on 
rough  mountain  life,  and  some  of  his  pictures  will 
always  hang  in  my  halls  of  memory.  Looking  at 
him  and  hearing  him  talk  in  his  quiet  way  on  des- 
perate and  bloody  scenes,  one  would  prefer  to  have 
him  on  his  side  in  any  little  unpleasantness  that 
might  spring  up.  Lynch  law  has  its  origin  in  a 
state  of  society  such  as  is  here  indicated. 

The  idea  of  civil,  local  government  is  inborn 
with  the  American  people.  When  they  move  off 
into  wild  lands  with  their  goods  and  chattels  they 
may  not  carry  law-books  and  codes  of  government, 
but  they  carry  notions  enough,  and  of  the  right 


LYNCH   LAW,  229 

kind,  about  the  rights  of  person,  and  of  property, 
and  of  conscience,  to  set  up  a  government  at  will. 
No  border  society  is  too  crude  or  emergency  too 
abrupt  for  these  legislators  of  the  frontier.  Of 
course  they  are  months  in  advance  of  any  civil 
code,  courts,  and  judicial  proceedings,  as  witness 
Kentucky  when  a  county  of  Virginia,  or  the  North- 
west Territory,  Illinois  County,  State  of  Virginia, 
or  a  large  portion  of  Montana,  when  taken  in  hand 
by  the  Vigilantes.  The  roughs  live  in  the  saddle 
and  saloons  and  dens,  monarchs  of  the  waste,  and 
now  and  then  gain  office  as  Plummer,  about  to  be 
mentioned,  where  they  can  pack  the  court-room 
and  write  verdicts. 

But  such  men  are  only  a  few  to  the  great  body 
of  honorable  and  orderly  frontier  men ;  and  the 
majesty,  stability,  and  broad  promise  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  nowhere  show  better  than  when  they 
extemporize  a  government  for  the  occasion,  and 
surround  person  and  property  with  the  sacred 
guards  of  laws  by  the  people.  It  is  not  only  not 
from  disregard  of  order  and  justice,  but  from  rev- 
erence and  high  esteem  of  these,  that  they  thus 
defend  the  public  good,  while  the  majesty  of  stat- 
ute law  and  old  States'  precedents  are  arriving 
tardily. 

The  Montana  of  those  days  is  sampled  by  these 
miscellaneous  facts.  Men  were  there  as  good  and 
true  as  any  in  the  oldest  State  in  the  Union,  and 
their  American  blood  was  at  a  normal  pulse.     The 


230  LYNCH   LAW. 

feelings  and  convictions  of  justice  overflowed,  but 
there  were  no  ordered  and  recognized  channels  for 
them.  Organic  government  had  not  yet  crossed  the 
plains  and  encamped  among  the  miners  and  stock- 
men around  the  heads  of  the  Gallatin  and  Madison 
and  Jefferson  rivers.  That  murdered  body,  lying 
half  a  day  in  an  open  wagon  in  the  streets  of 
Nevada  City,  hastened  the  issue,  and  at  ten  o'clock 
of  the  same  night  twenty-five  men,  armed  with 
just  purposes  and  reliable  revolvers  and  shot-guns, 
left  Nevada  silently  for  some  shanties  in  the  hills 
beyond,  where  the  body  was  found.  In  the  gray 
of  the  icy  morning  they  make  a  "  surround  "  of  a 
wakiup  outside  of  which  eight  or  ten  men  lie 
wrapped  in  blankets.  The  leader  of  the  troop  dis- 
mounts with  a  shout,  "  The  first  man  that  raises 
will  get  a  quart  of  buckshot  in  him."  It  was  not 
much  overstated,  for  twenty-five  double-barrelled 
guns  were  levelled  on  the  group.  The  leader 
hastened  to  the  door  of  the  shanty,  and  the  fol- 
lowing colloquy  ensued  :  "  Is  Long  John  here  ? "  — 
"  Yes."  "  Come  out  here ;  I  want  you."  —  "  Well, 
I  guess  I  know  what  you  want  me  for."  "  Prob- 
ably you  do ;  but  hurry  up :  we  have  got  no  time 
to  lose." — "  Well,  wait  till  I  get  my  moccasins  on, 
won't  you?"  "Be  quick  about  it,  then."  Four 
shot-guns  and  some  revolvers  took  him  under 
guard.  The  conversation  was  more  impressive 
than  abundant.  "  Long  Jolin,  you  liad  better 
prepare  for  another  world." 


LYNCH   LAW.  231 

The  leader  entered  again  the  wakiup,  and  in  the 
yet  deep  haze  of  the  morning  touched  a  blanketed 
fellow,  with  the  question,  "  Is  your  name  George 
Ives  ?  "  —  "  Yes."  "  I  want  you."  —  "  What  do  you 
want  me  for  ? "  "  To  go  to  Virginia  City."  —  "  All 
right ;  I  expect  I  have  to  go."  Then  the  shanty 
was  explored.  Five  men  were  sent  into  the  wakiup, 
and  the  rest  stood  round  it,  Tiie  result  of  their 
search  was  the  capture  of  several  dragoon  and 
navy  revolvers,  nine  shot-guns,  and  thirteen  rifles. 

The  mixed  party  started  for  Nevada  City,  pick- 
ing up  several  more  suspected  road  agents  on  the 
way.  The  arrival  was  in  the  evening  of  Decem- 
ber 18,  18G3.  The  exciting  news  went  almost  as 
by  telephone  through  all  the  wild  region,  and 
there  was  a  general  stampede  to  Nevada.  "The 
forenoon  of  the  1 9th  saw  the  still  swelling  tide  of 
miners,  merchants,  and  artisans  winding  their  way 
to  Nevada.  All  the  morning  was  spent  in  private 
examinations  of  the  prisoners,  and  private  consul- 
tations as  to  the  best  method  of  trial.  .  .  .  Little 
boys  were  at  play  in  the  streets,  and  fifteen  hundred 
men  stood  in  them,  impatient  for  action,  but  wait- 
ing without  a  murmur,  in  order  that  everything 
might  be  done  decently  and  in  order." 

It  was  decided  that  the  trial  should  be  by  the 
people,  and  therefore  they  agreed  on  a  judge, 
prosecuting  and  defending  counsel,  and  twenty- 
four  jurors,  —  the  power  of  revision  of  verdict 
being   retained  by   the   people,  —  mainly  miners. 


232  LYNCH   LAW. 

The  trial  opened  on  tlie  21st,  in  the  morning, 
and  was  closed  in  the  deepening  dusk  of  the 
evening  of  the  same  day,  by  a  verdict  against  the 
prisoners  of  twenty-three  to  one.  It  was  con- 
ducted under  the  open  sky ;  the  judge  and  coun- 
sel occupied  a  wagon ;  the  encircling  crowd  were 
kept  back  by  well-armed  and  brawny  men,  and 
a  huge  mountaineers'  fire  occupied  the  centre. 
A  light  log-chain,  with  padlocks,  made  the  three 
prisoners  fast  to  each  other ;  while  in  the  eager, 
pressing,  and  swaying  crowd  there  were  friends 
and  foes,  no  one  yet  knew  how  divided  in  strength. 
This  was  certain :  among  tliem  were  bandits,  des- 
peradoes, and  murderers,  of  terrible  energy,  with 
feelings  and  anxieties  intensified  by  the  conviction 
that  they  might  any  time  wear  those  chains  if  the 
prisoners  were  executed. 

It  was  generally  expected  that  a  bloody  rush 
would  be  sprung,  to  rescue  the  accused.  All  faces 
wore  purposes,  and  none  more  so  than  the  officials, 
each  of  whom,  as  well  as  every  condemning  wit- 
ness, felt  that  his  life  would  hang  lightly  about 
him  after  the  trial  if  the  halter  should  be  cheated 
out  of  its  due.  As  tlie  day  waned,  and  darkness 
and  excitement  deepened  together,  and  the  crum- 
bling brands  of  the  camp-fire  flashed  a  wild  light 
over  the  encircling  crowd,  it  was  a  scene  for  a 
painter.  The  sketch  of  it  would  hang  worth- 
ily in  English  and  American  halls,  among  his- 
toric paintings  which  show  when  civil  rights  and 


LYNCH    LA^Y.  233 

regulated  liberty  took  yet  another  good  step 
forward. 

The  verdict  was  adopted  by  the  people  with 
only  a  slight  dissent,  when  it  was  expected  by 
some  that  further  proceedings  would  be  adjourned 
till  daylight.  But  that  would  have  been  too 
critical  for  justice.  Then  appeared  one  of  those 
heroic  men  and  acts,  born  of  occasions  and  to  meet 
emergencies.  Colonel  Sanders  mounted  the  wagon, 
and,  reciting  the  accusations,  evidence,  and  verdict 
of  the  people,  moved  "  That  George  Ives  be  forth- 
with hung  by  the  neck  until  he  is  dead."  To  this 
the  people  agreed.  Time  was  given  for  making 
a  will  and  little  gifts  and  prayers,  and  for  dictat- 
ing letters.  A  business  air  pervaded  the  mixed 
multitude,  and  movements,  indicating  a  rush  and  a 
rescue,  were  soon  quieted  by  the  glint  from  the 
camp-fire,  as  it  fell  on  guns  and  revolvers  brought 
to  bear ;  and  the  deadly  "  click,  click "  of  the 
hammers  brought  to  place  quieted  all  murmurs. 

Not  far  away  from  where  George  Ives  sat  in 
trial  was  an  unfinished  house,  with  sides,  but  no  roof 
The  preparations  for  hanging  there  were  simple, 
ample,  and  brief.  "  The  butt  of  a  forty-foot  pole 
was  planted  inside  the  house,  at  the  foot  of  one 
of  the  walls,  and  the  stick  leaned  outward  over 
a  cross-beam.  Near  the  point  was  tied  the  fatal 
cord,  with  the  open  noose."  Outside  and  under- 
neath this  rope's  end  of  justice  was  placed  a  dry- 
goods   box.     Hands,    carrying    as    many    coats  of 


234  LYNCH   LAW. 

blood  as  an  old  colonial  lionse  of  to-day  does 
paint,  were  pinioned.  One  man  was  executed  by 
the  Vigilantes  who  had  killed  his  twelve.  In 
fil'ty-eight  minutes  from  the  time  his  doom  was 
fixed,  that  llocky  Mountain  outlaw  was  placed 
on  the  box,  and  the  noose  answered  the  ends  of 
justice  instantly.  Two  others  followed  George 
Ives. 

The  crisis  was  passed,  though  neither  party 
knew  it.  "All  the  promiucnt  friends  of  justice 
were  dogged,  threatened,  and  watched  by  the 
roughs."  Eight  and  wrong  stood  in  defiant  but 
as  yet  unorganized  opposition,  and  each  man  on 
either  side  carried  his  assumed  rights  on  the  trigger 
of  his  revolver.  This  was  a  delicate  state  of  things, 
when  every  bandit  had  made  himself  an  expert 
shot.  Plummer,  the  leader  of  the  outlaws,  was 
credited  with  an  ability  to  draw  and  deliver  five 
shots  in  three  seconds. 

Only  the  simpler  forms  of  government  had  yet 
arrived  in  the  mining-camps  and  ranches.  It  had 
only  the  goodly  appearance,  and  outside,  like 
armor  on  a  skeleton.  Some  offices  were  filled, 
and  yet  often  by  the  outlaws  themselves.  This 
Plummer  was  sheriff  of  the  county,  —  Beaver 
Head,  —  and  so  added  the  power  of  legal  place 
to  work  his  schemes  of  violence  and  robbery  and 
murder.  The  feelings  of  equity  and  justice  ran 
high,  but  had  no  channels,  and  common  sense  came 
to  the  rescue,  not  waiting  for  red  tape. 


LYNCH   LAW.  235 

"  Five  men  in  Virginia  City  and  one  in  Nevada 
City  commenced  simultaneously  to  take  the  ini- 
tiative in  the  matter.  Two  days  had  not  elapsed 
before  their  efibrts  were  united,  and  when  once 
a  beginning  had  been  made,  the  ramifications  of 
the  league  of  safety  and  order  extended,  in  a  week 
or  two,  all  over  the  Territory,  and  on  the  14th  of 
January,  1864,  the  coup  de  grace  was  given  to  the 
power  of  the  band  by  tlie  execution  of  five  of  the 
chief  villains  in  Virginia  City.  .  .  .  Merchants, 
miners,  mechanics,  and  professional  men  alike 
joined  in  the  movement,  .  .  .  which  upon  the 
whole,  it  must  be  admitted,  has  from  the  first 
acted  with  a  wisdom,  a  justice,  and  a  vigor  never 
surpassed  on  this  continent,  and  rarely,  if  ever, 
equalled."  Progress  was  made  in  organization,  and 
the  mixed  and  massed  populace  around  that  great 
camp-fire  gave  place  to  selected  and  organized 
men.  They  possessed  intelligence,  honor,  coolness 
of  head,  and  energy.  The  Vigilantes  of  Montana 
were  originally  twenty-four  such  men,  volunteers, 
and  approved  of  the  body  of  fair  citizens.  They 
were  detectives,  police,  a  court  of  inquiry  and  of 
trial  and  of  execution.  "  They  carried  generally 
a  pair  of  revolvers,  a  rifle  and  shot-gun,  blankets, 
and  some  rope.  Spirits  were  forbidden  to  be 
used."  They  followed  these  outlaws  through  the 
camps,  hunted  them  in  the  wakiups,  and  passed 
over  mountains  and  valleys,  sometimes  for  hun- 
dreds   of  miles,  and  for  months  continuous.     In 


236  LYNCH   LAW. 

all  cases  possible,  arrests  were  made  without  as- 
sault, as  in  the  States,  and  the  prisoners  were 
taken  to  populous  centres  for  trial.  Witnesses  were 
gathered  for  and  against,  the  accused  having  his 
own  when  reasonably  demanded.  "  The  evidence 
not  being  conclusive,  they  were  released,  though 
their  guilt  was  morally  certain.  The  Vigilantes 
rigidly  abstained,  in  all  cases,  from  inflicting  the 
penalty  due  to  crime,  without  entirely  satisfactory 
evidence  of  guilt." 

After  trial  had  and  verdict  rendered,  by  this 
extempore  government  of  this  frontier  belt  of 
civilization,  the  finality  of  justice  was  reached 
with  great  expedition.  A  convenient  limb,  a  rope, 
ten  or  a  score  of  honorable,  earnest  men,  a  camp- 
stool,  box,  barrel,  or  plank,  easily  jerked  from 
under,  and  the  work  was  done.  The  simplicity 
and  facility  of  the  terrible  process,  with  its  speed, 
corresponded  to  the  American  border  life  of  those 
regions  and  times.  All  this  appeared  fitting,  as 
in  the  case  of  Dutch  John,  who  "  travelled  with 
a  rifle  in  his  hand,  a  heart  of  stone,  a  will  of  iron, 
and  the  frame  of  a  Hercules." 

Three  men — Plummer,the  head  of  the  bandits  of 
Montana,  Buck  Stinson,  and  Ned  Eay  —  were  tried 
and  sentenced  while  at  large,  and  were  captured 
in  the  night,  when  about  to  flee  the  country.  Their 
execution  followed  immediately.  In  the  suburbs 
of  Bannack  stood  a  gallows,  which  Plummer,  as 
sheriff,  had  prepared  for  another  man.     Toward  it 


LYNCH   LAW.  237 

the  Vigilantes  moved  with  a  business  tread,  guard- 
ing in  escort  the  three  doomed  men,  while  a  mis- 
cellaneous crowd  fell  in.  The  lanterns  glanced 
their  light  from  the  guns,  which  were  carried  for 
a  sudden  aim,  and  with  fatal  readiness,  as  when 
one  is  shooting  on  the  wing.  The  spectators  were 
halted  by  the  guard  at  a  safe  distance,  one  rope 
was  thrown  over  the  beam,  and  the  order  went  out 
into  the  still  night  air,  "  Bring  up  Ned  Eay  ; "  and 
the  desperado  was  swung  up,  with  curses  on  his 
lips.  Stinson  followed  his  companion  in  crimes. 
Then  the  call,  "  Bring  up  Plummer."  This  "  per- 
fect gentleman,"  as  his  friends  aflected  to  call  him, 
pleaded  delay,  with  the  request,  "  Give  a  man 
time  to  pray."  The  leader  responded,  "  Certainly  ; 
but  let  him  say  his  prayers  up  here."  It  was  rap- 
idly over,  and  the  intense  cold  soon  held  the  three 
bodies  in  a  freezing  embrace,  and  the  "  Eeign  of 
Terror"  in  Bannack  was  ended.  Groans  and  curs- 
ings and  wailings  broke  the  stillness,  as  an  infa- 
mous woman,  the  mistress  of  Ned  Eay,  pressed 
through  the  crowd  toward  the  gallows. 

Sometimes,  though  very  seldom,  judicial  pun- 
ishment degenerated,  among  the  outsiders,  into 
vengeance  and  mobbing,  as  when  the  Mexican, 
Pizanthia,  w^as  executed.  He  was  famed  as  a  des- 
perado, robber,  and  murderer.  His  hut  was  a  half 
excavation  in  the  hillside,  in  which  he  resisted  ar- 
rest, killing  one  of  the  Vigilantes  and  wounding  an- 
other.    Some  former  soldiers  of  the  army  brought 


238  LYNCH    LAW. 

an  old  howitzer  to  bear,  and  what  with  it  and 
small  arms,  the  cabin  was  riddled  and  then  stormed. 
Enough  life  was  found  in  the  outlaw  to  hang  him, 
and  then  the  mob  burnt  tlie  hut.  "  In  tlie  morn- 
ing some  miserable  women  actually  panned  out 
the  ashes  to  see  whether  the  desperado  had  any 
gold." 

These  rough  and  radical  measures  to  insure  the 
enjoyment  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness in  Montana,  ran  on  with  increasing  vigor 
and  success,  and  with  decreasing  need,  down  into 
1865.  When  these  stern  processes  of  irregular 
justice  were  introduced,  there  had  been  more  than 
one  hundred  violent  and  well-discovered  deaths,  to 
say  nothing  of  undiscovered  murders  of  missing 
men,  and  of  minor  yet  high-handed  acts  of  out- 
lawry and  crime.  From  what  is  well  known  of 
border  life  to-day,  it  is  safe  to  affirm  that  the 
undiscovered  deaths  by  violence  were  as  four  to 
one  of  the  discovered.  These  inroads  of  blood 
and  brigandage  were  arrested  by  the  summary 
execution  of  twenty-four  outlaws  within  one 
year  from  the  hanging  of  George  Ives,  Dec.  21, 
1863. 

These  processes  of  justice,  so  fearfully  direct  be- 
tween a  community  and  its  enemies,  had  a  much 
shorter  career  in  Montana  than  in  California,  be- 
cause the  former  had  before  them  the  experiences 
of  the  latter.  The  Vigilance  Committee  of  San 
Francisco  had  two  administrations,  or  one  might 


LYKCH    LAW.  239 

say  that  there  were  two  committees,  —  the  one  of 
1851  and  the  other  of  1856,  —  while  the  latter  was 
almost  the  reinanguration  of  the  former.  A  brief 
statement  of  the  orioin,  methods,  and  doings  of  the 
Vigilantes  of  San  Francisco  will  not  only  give,  in 
caption,  one  of  the  most  exciting,  romantic,  and 
tragic  chapters  in  our  frontier  history,  but  it  will 
show,  by  sample,  the  material  of  much  of  our  bor- 
der life  to-day,  and  how  we  are  working  it  up  into 
a  civil  and  safe  and  honorable  society.  The  best 
as  well  as  the  briefest  statement  of  Lynch  law  in 
California,  in  its  youngest  American  days,  can  be 
made  in  a  few  passages. 

The  original  Vigilance  Committee  of  San  Fran- 
cisco  organized  in  1851.  As  to  the  period  of  two 
years  preceding :  "  It  was  the  free-and-easy  age 
when  everybody  was  flush,  and  fortune,  if  not  in 
the  palm,  w^as  only  just  beyond  the  grasp  of  all. 
Men  lived  chiefly  in  tents,  or  in  cabins  scarcely 
more  durable,  and  behaved  themselves  like  a  gen- 
eration of  bachelors.  The  family  was  beyond  the 
mountains ;  the  restraints  of  society  had  not  yet 
arrived.  .  .  .  More  rollicked  in  a  perfect  freedom 
from  those  bonds  which  good  men  cheerfully  as- 
sume in  settled  society  for  the  good  of  the  greater 
number.  .  .  .  This  heterogeneous  mixture  of  men 
were  either  without  law,  or  were  the  makers  and 
executors  of  their  own  law.  ...  As  to  civil  law, 
the  country  was  utterly  at  sea.  It  had  a  governor 
in  the  person  of  the  commandant  of  the  military 


240  LYNCH    LAW. 

district  it  belonged  to,  but  no  goveniineiit.  .  .  .  The 
fame  of  the  gold  placers  liad  tempted  a  rush  of  all 
sorts  of  men,  and  it  must  be  confessed  that  for  a 
■while  it  seemed  that  the  doubtful  and  dangerous 
classes  were  in  excess  over  the  orderly.  The  light- 
est drift  of  the  floating  population  of  the  world 
waslied  up  here,  —  not  only  the  restless  characters 
of  Christendom,  but  of  heathen  countries  also.  .  .  . 
The  gamblers  of  the  world  met  here;  the  foremost 
of  that  desperate  and  wretched  class  swarmed  to 
San  Francisco  like  vultures  to  the  carcass.  .  .  . 
The  absence  of  municipal  law,  or  tlie  neglect  of 
its  officers,  left  them  without  restraint  to  indulge 
their  career.  .  .  .  The  '  El  Dorado,'  while  a  tent 
fifteen  by  twenty-five  feet  on  the  ground,  rented 
for  forty  thousand  dollars  a  year  to  gamblers.  .  .  . 
A  great  deal  of  trouble  was  caused  by  the  desper- 
ate, reckless  villains  who  flocked  to  the  city  from 
all  parts  of  the  world."  ^ 

So  far  Tuthill  speaks  of  the  material  in  the  pop- 
ulation of  San  Francisco,  then  fifty  thousand,  which 
seemed  to  demand  the  extraordinary  measures  of 
government  under  the  first  Vigilance  Committee  of 
1851.  Of  this  condition  of  things,  and  of  the  ne- 
cessity for  a  new  regime,  another  historian  thus 
writes  :  "  The  pioneers  saw  nearly  the  whole  busi- 
ness part  of  the  city  swept  away  by  several  great 
conflagrations.      They   saw   the   Sydney  convicts 

1  The  History  of  California.  Bj- Franklin  Tuthill.  1866,  pp. 
244,  245,  246,  326,  337,  380. 


LYNCH   LAW.  241 

threaten  to  become  masters  of  the  place  in  1851."^ 
The  same  author  quotes  the  report  of  a  grand  jury 
of  the  county,  to  the  same  end,  which  was  made 
after  the  Committee  had  executed  two  persons  : 
"When  we  recall  the  delays,  and  the  inefficient 
and  we  believe  that  with  truth  it  may  be  said  the 
corrupt  administration  of  the  law,  the  incapacity 
and  indifference  of  those  who  are  its  sworn  guar- 
dians and  ministers,  the  frequent  and  unnecessary 
postponement  of  important  trials  in  the  district 
court,  the  disregard  of  duty,  and  impatience  while 
attending  to  perform  it,  manifested  by  some  of  our 
judges  having  criminal  jurisdiction,  the  many  no- 
torious villains  who  have  gone  un whipped  of  jus- 
tice, —  we  are  led  to  believe  that  the  members  of 
the  Association  have  been  governed  by  a  feeling  of 
opposition  to  the  manner  in  which  the  law  has 
been  administered  and  those  who  have  adminis- 
tered it,  rather  than  a  determination  to  disregard 
the  law  itself,  .  .  .  when  all  other  means  of  pre- 
venting crime  and  bringing  criminals  to  direct 
punishment  had  failed."  ^ 

Of  the  organization  of  the  committee  our  au- 
thors proceed  to  say  :  "  Many  of  the  best  citizens 
formed  themselves  into  a  Committee  of  Vigilance, 
and  because  the  courts  could  not,  or  would  not, 
punish  crime,  undertook  themselves  to  administer 

1  A  History  of  the  City  of  San  Francisco.  By  John  S.  HittelL 
1878.    p.  7. 

2  Hittell,  p.  176. 

16 


242  LYNCH   LAW. 

justice."  ^  "  Without  law,  tliere  was  an  unwritten 
law  taken  for  granted,  that  dealt  justice  to  rich 
and  poor  alike  with  rigid  exactness."  ^ 

"  Though  grave  crimes  had  been  committed  in 
large  numbers,  none  of  the  offenders  had  been  pun- 
ished. The  police  were  inefficient  if  not  criminal, 
and  the  judges  and  prosecuting  attorneys  showed 
no  zeal  in  their  business.  The  people  saw  that  if 
they  wanted  an  effective  administration  of  justice, 
they  must  take  charge  of  it  themselves,  and  ac- 
cordingly about  three  thousand  citizens  gathered  at 
the  City  Hall  to  take  decisive  action."  ^ 

"  England  had  been  banishing  her  convicts  and 
dangerous  classes  to  Australia,  whence  they  re- 
shipped  direct  for  San  Francisco.  Many  of  these, 
to  the  number  of  fifty  probably,  were  detected  by 
the  Committee  before  lauding,  and  with  return 
passage  money  paid  for  them,  they  were  sent  back 
to  their  British  Botany  Bay."  * 

The  main  work  of  the  Committee  of  1851  was  to 
banish  desperadoes,  outlaws,  and  rascals.  The  five 
great  fires  in  the  city,  destroying  about  sixteen 
millions'  worth  of  property  within  eighteen  months, 
were  presumed  to  have  originated  with  them,  of 
whom  scores  were  exiled  under  severe  penalty  of 
return.  This  Committee  executed  but  few  men, 
and,  as  has  been  intimated,  after  a  brief  and  vigor- 
ous life  it  went  into  a  state  of  suspended  anima- 

1  Tuthill,  p.  380.  3  Tuthill,  p.  172.    . 

2  Hittell,  p.  338.  «  Hittell,  p.  177,  178. 


LYNCH   LAW.  243 

tion  rather  than  of  extinction.  Indeed,  in  the 
mines  it  never  ceased  to  be  vigilant  and  executive. 
When  robbery  and  violence  there  were  committed, 
"  they  rallied  from  all  the  camps  about,  to  hunt 
the  culprit,  and  when  found,  to  try  him,  Judge 
Lynch  presiding.  The  jury  were  intolerant  of 
long  trials.  The  examinations  were  sharp  and 
brief,  the  questions  apt  to  be  leading.  When  the 
jury  found  a  verdict  of  guilty,  the  miserable  pris- 
oner was  run  up  by  the  neck  to  a  limb  of  the 
nearest  tree.  The  very  swiftness  of  justice  saved 
her  from  being  called  into  frequent  requisition."  ^ 

It  is  easy  to  tell  the  causes  which  led  to  the 
organization  and  doings  of  the  Vigilance  Committee 
of  1856.  "About  the  meanest  class  that  cursed 
the  community  was  a  brood  of  unprincipled,  labor- 
hating,  professional  politicians,  who  gathered  from 
all  corners  of  the  States,  fetching  with  them  the 
worst  vices  peculiar  to  the  political  system  of  the 
locality  they  had  relieved  by  leaving."  This  class 
Hittell  tersely  describes  in  his  Preface :  "  The 
political  ruffians  obtained  a  powerful  influence  in 
the  municipal  government  in  1856."  Tuthill  goes 
on  to  say :  "  The  dregs  of  society,  swindlers, 
thieves,  and  gamblers,  dictated  to  the  party  dicta- 
tors, and  ruled  the  State  with  a  tyranny  that  con- 
ventions dare  not  meddle  with.  .  .  .  The  better 
classes  had  despised  politics,  and  the  worst  classes 
picked  up  the  reins  and  were  driving  fast  to  ruin. 

1  Tuthill,  p.  339. 


244  LYNCH   LAW. 

Tlie  judiciary  fell  into  disrepute.  The  course  of 
regular  justice  was  obstructed.  Criminals  enjoyed 
an  alarming  immunity  from  punishment.  Violence 
ruled  in  city  and  country.  .  .  .  There  was  no  assur- 
ance that  conviction  would  follow  arrest,  no  matter 
how  many  witnesses.  .  .  .  The  State-prison  at  San 
Queutin  was  a  sieve.  In  December,  1854,  thirty 
convicts  escaped  from  it  on  the  same  day.  .  . 
There  were  bad  men  in  office,  who  had  things  very 
much  their  own  way;  corrupt  judges,  who  fingered 
bribes,  as  the  public  believed ;  sheriffs  and  con- 
stables and  jailers,  to  whom  detected  criminals  ran 
for  refuge."  ^ 

The  time  was,  of  course,  hastening  when  that 
would  occur  which  Tuthill  had  said  might  justly 
occur :  "  When  the  enacted  laws  failed  of  exe- 
cution, it  was  the  people's  right  to  resume  the 
power  that  they  had  delegated,  or  which  had  been 
usurped."  ^ 

We  have  elsewhere  stated  that  the  first  code 
of  laws  drafted,  published,  and  executed  in  the 
Northwest  Territory,  at  Marietta,  was  by  a  mass 
meeting,  and  therefore  a  code  of  Lynch  law.  The 
first  job  of  printing  ever  executed  in  that  imperial 
Territory  was  its  first  body  of  laws.  They  were 
irregularly  and  informally  passed,  and  never  ap- 
proved by  Congress,  yet  had  force,  but  not  legality, 
till  a  constitutional  code  was  adopted.     The  Lynch 

1  Tuthill,  pp.  339,  426,  427,  429,  430. 

2  Tuthill,  p.  460. 


LYNCH    LAW.  245 

law  code  preceded  in  both  the  necessity  and  the 
equity  of  the  case. 

These  historical  passages  are  philosophical  also^ 
and  convey  hints  as  well  as  facts.  When  tlie  law's 
delays  and  prearranged  weaknesses  and  failures 
are  lessening  confidence  in  the  government,  it  is 
inevitable  that  the  American  people  at  least  should 
irregularly  and  more  or  less  covertly  array  them- 
selves against  it.  For  with  them  the  notion  of 
government  is  inborn  and  divine,  and  what  many 
incline  to  call  abnormal  is  fundamentally  normal 
with  intelligent  Americans,  since  demand  and  rev- 
erence for  law  lead  them  to  disregard  lifeless  and 
skeleton  law.  While  questions  of  equity  can  be 
hung  up  for  decades  of  years,  and  moved  along  on 
serial  hooks  of  the  law,  in  the  old  settlements  of 
the  East,  till  the  original  parties  have  gone  up  to 
the  final  court,  a  orowing  American  town  on  the 
border  becomes  impatient.  When  the  English 
language  is  almost  exhausted  in  the  structure  of 
legal  technicalities,  till  there  is  an  infinite  swamp 
of  refuge,  as  for  a  hunted  wolf,  and  the  eminent 
lawyer  flees  to  it  with  his  client,  it  must  not  seem 
strange  if  an  injured  and  neglected  community  way- 
lay the  fugitive  criminal  in  the  "  open  "  before  he 
gains  cover. 

When,  in  one  of  these  wild  counties  of  six 
months'  growth  men  go  to  the  witness  stand  and 
jury  box  and  bench,  who  should  have  gone  behind 
the  bars  or  to  the  gallows,  and  all  that  they  may 


246  LYNCH    LAW. 

let  criminals  go  by  witli  a  password  and  for  a  con- 
sideration, men,  good  and  true,  who  cannot  stop 
to  be  politicians  and  court  managers,  must  be  ex- 
pected to  do  something  abruptly.  And  when  the 
pardoning  power  is  debased  to  the  veto  of  equity 
and  justice,  and  wild  animals  are  uncaged,  as  if 
one  should  meddle  with  a  menagerie,  men  of  order 
must  be  expected  to  become  disorderly  in  a  me- 
thodical and  most  patriotic  way. 

An  occasion  for  a  people's  court  offered  in  May, 
1856,  when  James  King  was  shot  for  some  severe 
editorial  reflections  in  his  paper  on  James  P.  Casey. 
The  latter  retaliated  with  his  revolver  for  the 
political  and  personal  attack,  and  his  victim  died 
in  six  days.  On  the  evening  of  the  shooting,  the 
Vigilance  Committee  of  1851  convened.  The  press 
generally  advocated  a  vigorous  and  executive  course 
by  the  people,  and  within  thirty  hours  of  the  as- 
sault twenty-five  hundred  names  were  enrolled  ou 
the  books  of  a  Vigilance  Committee,  "  who  pledged 
themselves  to  work  together  for  the  purging  of 
the  city  of  its  late  ruling  classes,  —  the  gamblers, 
ballot-box  stuffers,  jury-packers,  foreign  convicts, 
swindlers,  thieves  high  and  low,  and  of  villains 
generally.  Hundreds  were  waiting  their  turn,  all 
day,  to  register  themselves."  ^  The  Committee  took 
prominent  and  ample  headquarters,  cleared  the 
streets  for  two  blocks,  mounted  six  brass  pieces, 
placed  swivels  loaded  with  grape  on  the  roof,  and 

1  Tuthill,  p.  438. 


LYNCH   LAW.  247 

put  the  streets  under  the  control  of  three  hundred 
rifles  and  muskets.  Small  arms  were  gathered 
abundantly  inside,  and  all  spirituous  liquors  were 
excluded.  The  headquarters  were  at  the  same 
time  an  armory,  a  drill-room,  a  court-room,  a  guard- 
house, a  fort,  and  a  secure  prison,  with  expenses 
at  about  five  hundred  dollars  a  day.  A  huge  tri- 
angle swung  on  the  roof,  and  its  sounds  could  call 
thousands  instantly,  on  an  emergency.  Draymen 
stopped  in  the  street,  freed  their  horses,  mounted, 
and  went  clattering  to  the  rendezvous.  Store- 
keepers locked  up  hastily  and  ran.  Clerks  leaped 
over  their  counters ;  carpenters  left  the  shaving 
in  the  plane  ;  blacksmiths  dropped  the  hammer 
by  the  red-hot  iron  on  the  anvil.  All  the  city 
hurried  to  headquarters  for  any  sudden  work. 
An  immense  mass-meeting  stimulated  and  con- 
centrated the  purposes  for  reform.  One  voting 
district  of  thirty  legal  voters  was  named  as  re- 
turning five  hundred  votes ;  three  precincts  of 
three  hundred  voters  had  returned  fifteen  hun- 
dred. One  speaker  said  "  that  probably  more 
than  five  hundred  murders  had  been  committed 
in  California  during  the  preceding  year,  yet  not 
more  than  five  of  the  perpetrators  had  been  pun- 
ished according  to  the  forms  of  the  law."  When 
the  Committee  had  been  in  action  only  two  weeks, 
"  the  newspapers  almost  unanimously,  the  clergy 
with  astonishing  boldness,  the  people,  apparently 
for  the  time  as  one  man,  approved  the  formation 


248  LYNCH   LAW. 

of  the  Committee.  .  .  .  Three  fourths  of  all  the 
people  of  the  State  sympathized  with  and  indorsed 
their  efforts  at  reform."  ^ 

As  to  the  methods  of  administration  under  this 
code  of  emergency,  it  is  high  commendation  of  a 
mixed  populace  of  American  citizens,  outraged 
in  sight  of  the  halls  of  formal  justice,  and  even 
within  them,  and  intensely  aroused  by  their 
wrongs,  that  they  carried  unlawful  weapons  and 
equity  with  such  an  even  hand.  The  first  great 
trial  —  that  of  Casey  for  shooting  King  —  canie 
off  on  the  day  following  King's  death. 

"No  person  was  present  at  the  trial  save  the 
accused,  members  of  the  Vigilance  Committee,  and 
witnesses.  The  testimony  was  given  under  oath, 
though  there  was  no  lawful  authority  for  its  ad- 
ministration. Hearsay  testimony  was  excluded ; 
the  general  rules  of  evidence  observed  in  the  courts 
were  adopted ;  the  accused  heard  all  the  witnesses, 
cross-examined  those  against  him,  summoned  such 
as  he  wanted  in  his  favor,  had  an  attorue}'^  to  assist 
him,  and  was  permitted  to  make  an  argument  by 
himself  or  his  attorney  in  his  own  defence.  .  .  . 
The  Executive  Committee  were  careful  to  take  no 
evidence  except  that  which  would  be  received  in 
the  courts,  and  to  execute  no  prisoner  unless  he 
had  committed  a  crime  punishable  with  death 
under  the  law  of  California.  .  .  .  The  Vigilance 
organization  did  not  interfere  in  any  way  with  the 

1  Tuthill,  pp.  451,  460,  467,  476. 


LYNCH   LAW.  249 

ordinary  business  of  the  courts  and  the  police. 
The  district  courts  sat  every  day  to  try  suits  in- 
volving the  rights  of  property,  and  the  criminal 
courts  sentenced  offenders  for  theft,  assault,  and 
drunkenness,  as  in  ordinary  times.  The  city  was 
far  more  orderly  than  ever  before  or  since."  ^ 

The  very  formidable  police  and  military  and 
judicial  manifestation  of  the  Committee  no  doubt 
did  much  to  make  punishment  unnecessary.  The 
renegade  and  variously  corrupt  mass  was  overawed 
and  restrained  by  so  imposing  a  tribunal.  Only 
four  persons  were  executed  by  the  Committee  of 
1856.  Those  who  were  noted  for  minor  crimes, 
and  especially  those  who  corrupted  government 
and  equity  at  their  very  fountains  by  stuffing  the 
ballot-box,  were  banished,  and  usually  to  the  places 
whence  they  came,  as  Sydney  and  other  Australian 
ports. 

This  off-hand  and  inexpensive  administration  of 
justice  by  banishment  had  a  pleasing  illustration 
for  us  at  the  great  Indian  Fair  at  Muskogee,  in 
September,  1880.  It  was  a  remarkably  orderly 
gathering  of  about  twenty-five  hundred  persons, 
mostly  Indians,  and  wholly  under  Indian  manage- 
ment. Some  white  roughs  had  come  down  from 
Arkansas  to  breed  riot  and  crime.  When  certain 
overt  acts  had  come  to  light,  the  Indian  detectives 
and  sheriff  took  these  men  back  to  the  railway 
station,  and  as  the  Texan  cars  returned,  going 
1  Hittell,  pp.  250,  252,  253. 


250  LYNCH    LAW. 

north,  they  were  put  on  hoard,  ticketed  home  to 
Arkansas.  This  Indian  copying  of  tlie  white 
man's  civilization  quite  interested  and  encouraged 
us  as  to  the  future  of  the  lied  man. 

The  testimony  of  an  observer,  at  tlie  time  on 
tlie  ground  in  San  Francisco,  is  pertinent  liere : 
"  In  the  administration  of  California  Lynch  law, 
so  far  as  I  have  known  or  heard,  the  tliunderbolt 
of  public  fury  has  always  fallen  only  on  the  head 
of  the  guilty  man  who,  by  the  enormity  and  pal- 
pable character  of  his  crimes,  excited  it ;  and  then 
not  till  after  his  guilt  was  proved  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  masses  composing  the  court.  ...  In  pro- 
portion as  the  law  acquires  power  in  California 
for  the  protection  of  the  citizens,  in  that  propor- 
tion Lynch  law  is  dispensed  with."  ^ 

After  about  three  months  of  anxious,  perilous, 
and  expensive  labors,  the  Committee  accomplished 
the  work  which  they  undertook.  In  the  interests  of 
justice  and  order  they  had  defied  the  empty  and 
mocking  forms  of  law,  until  they  could  refill  them 
with  life  and  normal  activity,  and  so  make  them  a 
terror  to  evil-doers.  This  was  now  done,  and  they 
prepared  to  lay  down  the  amazing  power  which 
they  had  so  daringly  and  heroically  seized.  Their 
august  opening  was  half  the  battle  for  right,  and 
they  planned  a  magnificent  closing,  that  they  might 
perpetuate  a  wholesome  fear  in  the  memories  of 

1  California  Life  Illustrated.      By  William   Taylor.     1858. 
pp.  296,  299. 


LYNCH    LAW.  251 

all  bad  citizens.  At  the  same  time  the  impression 
was  left  on  the  community  that  the  organization 
went  into  suspense  rather  than  dissolution,  and 
could  reappear  on  the  alarm-tolling  of  an  ominous 
bell. 

"  Under  the  influence  of  such  considerations 
[finished  work]  the  Executive  Committee,  with  the 
approval  of  the  board  of  delegates,  adopted  a  res- 
olution to  disband  the  forces.  On  the  18th  of 
August  [1856]  the  city  took  a  general  holiday,  to 
witness  the  celebration  of  the  disbanding  of  the 
Vigilance  Committee,  and  thousands  came  from 
interior  towns  to  see  the  men  who  had  defied  the 
law  for  three  months  in  the  interest  of  justice  and 
honesty.  The  streets  were  bright  witli  flags  and 
flowers ;  the  sidewalks  were  lined  with  ladies  in 
brilliant  dresses  along  the  line  adopted  by  the 
procession,  or  rather  the  army,  which  contained 
five  thousand  one  liundred  and  thirty-seven  men, 
including  three  artillery  companies,  with  eighteen 
pieces  of  cannon,  twenty-nine  members  of  the 
Executive  Committee,  two  hundred  and  ninety 
dragoons,  forty-nine  surgeons  and  physicians,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  members  of  the  Committee  of 
Vigilance  of  1851,  vigilant  police,  hundreds  of  citi- 
zens on  horseback,  thirty-three  companies  of  the 
vigilant  infantry,  and  numerous  military  bands. 
The  troops  were  reviewed,  and  a  farewell  address 
was  published  by  the  Executive  Committee,  con- 
gratulatin<'  the   freneral  committee  and  the  com- 


252  LYNCH    LA\V. 

muiiity  on  the  valuable  services  rendered,  and 
promising  that  the  organization  sliould  be  revived 
if  it  were  necessary  to  protect  its  members  against 
violence  or  malicious  prosecution  on  account  of 
the  action  of  the  Committee,  or  to  guard  the 
])urity  of  the  ballot-box.  It  was  never  formally 
dissolved."  ^ 

Such  a  force,  unorganized,  is  always  at  hand  on 
our  wild  border,  and  is  more  operative  than  is 
generally  supposed.  As  the  frequent  failures  of 
the  law  and  the  court  are  only  now  and  then 
made  public,  and  to  a  limited  extent  at  the  best, 
in  wild  border  counties  as  large  as  an  Eastern 
State,  so  these  prompt  trials  and  inevitable  execu- 
tions of  judgments  by  extemporized  courts  are  not 
widely  published.  Occasionally  a  case  gains  the 
notoriety  of  print,  and  thus  the  impression  is  left 
by  the  solitariness  of  published  accounts  that  they 
are  rare.  One  needs  only  to  make  Lynch  law  the 
topic,  and  then  listen  in  cabin  or  tent  on  the  bor- 
der, to  be  satisfied  of  the  frequency  of  these  sum- 
mary proceedings.  We  were  once  enjoying  camp- 
fire  and  log-cabin  life  for  a  month  under  the  per- 
petual snow-peaks  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  among 
men  who  had  ranged  from  the  Mexican  border  to 
British  Columbia.  They  had  been  trappers  and 
Indian  traders,  ranch-men  and  miners.  At  a  single 
evening  camp-fire,  in  their  details  of  personal 
incidents,   twenty-seven   cases   of  lynching   were 

1  Hittell,  pp.  259,  260. 


LYN'CII    LAW.  253 

mentioned  in  which  they  had  been  either  actors 
or  spectators.  Tlie  executions  were  scattered 
through  Arizona,  Kansas,  Colorado,  and  Missouri, 
and  between  1870  and  1880.  When  returning 
from  Puget  Sound  over  the  Northern  Pacific  not 
long  since,  the  author  met  at  Medora  the  sanitary 
government  inspector  of  cattle  for  that  region. 
When  the  hope  was  expressed  that  there  is  less 
violence  now  in  maintaining  order  in  the  Eocky 
Mountain  region  than  there  was  in  the  days  of 
the  Vigilantes,  he  replied  that  in  1884  twenty-five 
horse-thieves  were  believed  to  have  been  lynched 
in  Montana. 

It  surprises  some  that  the  horse-thief,  so  called, 
should  so  lead  off  in  the  number  of  lynched  men, 
when  his  crime  is  presumed  to  be  a  question  of 
property  of  one  or  two  hundred  dollars.  Tlie 
term  "horse-thief"  is  really  generic,  or  a  syno- 
nym for  a  great  variety  of  criminals.  He  is  the 
thief  of  any  movable  property,  a  highwayman,  a 
bandit,  a  murderer,  at  his  convenience,  defiant  of 
government,  an  outlaw,  and  the  enemy,  specific 
and  in  general,  of  society.  The  execution  of  a 
horse-thief,  therefore,  is  ordinarily  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice  in  gross,  and  not  in  severalty 
of  crimes. 

This  is  to  be  said,  —  that  lynching  in  the  Territo- 
ries and  new  States  comes  in  where  the  law  is  crude 
and  feeble.  Where  the  court-house  appears  in  due 
dignity  and  power.  Lynch  law  disappears  in  the 


254  LYNCH    LAW. 

shadow,  and  will  come  from  roar  to  front  on  any 
well-grounded  call.  Americans  understand,  as  no 
other  people,  that  liberty  and  equity  cannot  be  lost 
in  the  inoperative  framework  of  law.  They  are  per- 
petual, the  law  is  temporary ;  they  are  the  freight, 
the  law  is  only  the  carriage  :  and  sometimes,  as  in 
the  days  of  old  Israel  in  their  emigrant  and  tent 
era,  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  the  main  thing,  will 
be  set  forward  on  a  new  cart,  while  the  old  one  be- 
comes a  bonfire.  Lynch  law,  commonly  in  the  old 
East  thought  of  opprobriously,  is  usually  enforced 
on  the  frontier  practically  and  patriotically,  and 
from  a  high  esteem  for  law.  The  abnormal  or 
rather  the  nascent  condition  of  society  in  a  Terri- 
tory or  very  new  State  makes  this  law  sometimes 
a  necessity,  and  therefore  normal.  The  personals 
of  life  and  movable  properties  emigrate  and  take 
orderly  and  rightful  place  in  new  homes  faster  than 
statutes  ;  and  clusters  of  families  are  often  in  ad- 
vance of  district  and  municipal  and  circuit  courts. 
The  Marietta  Colony  arrived  on  the  Muskingum  in 
the  spring;  but  Governor  St.  Clair  and  the  territo- 
rial code  of  laws  did  not  arrive  till  midsummer. 
Meantime  the  colony  extemporized  and  executed 
a  code.  These  notions  of  personal  rights  are  in- 
nate, and  as  truly  adhere  to  the  man  and  go  with 
him  as  his  limbs  or  life.  Out  of  tliem  comes  the 
municipal  and  civil  state,  under  the  titles  of  so- 
ciety, government,  and  statutes.  They  arrive  in 
the  settlement  in  the  form  of  Blackstone  or  a  law 


LYNCH   LAW.  255 

library,  and  take  civil  sliape  and  associate  power 
after  the  immigrant  and  his  neighbors  have  arrived. 
In  that  transition  and  formation  and  growing  time 
between  the  recent  and  isolated  settlers  and  the 
organized,  well-compacted,  and  well-running  so- 
ciety, rights  will  be  few,  and  will  demand  protec- 
tion under  extempore  government,  and  of  home 
manufacture.  Like  so  much  else  around  the  cab- 
ins and  tents,  the  civil  must  be  crude,  as  well  as 
the  mechanical  and  domestic  and  architectural ;  and 
when  debased,  barbarous,  and  bloody  men  strike 
out  defiantly  for  a  low  animal  communism,  they 
are  the  law-abiding  men,  in  the  non-arrival  as  yet 
of  Eoman  or  English  or  New  England  laws,  who 
soonest  find  the  outlaw  and  visit  penalty.  Our 
border  government  from  colonial  times  lias  been 
of  this  kind,  and  of  necessity,  and  therefore 
reasonably. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Ohio  Company  extempo- 
rized a  people's  code  of  laws  and  a  court,  while  in 
waiting  for  what  had  been  established  but  had  not 
arrived ;  nor  were  they  hasty  in  forming  an  extem- 
pore government,  on  the  theory  of  the  primitive 
settlers  in  Oregon,  who  petitioned  their  first  Legis- 
lative Committee  to  build  a  jail,  when  as  yet  they 
had  no  convicts,  saying,  "  We  are  assured  that  it 
is  better  to  have  the  building  standing  without 
a  tenant,  than  a  tenant  without  the  building."  ^ 

1  A  History  of  Oregon.  By  W.  H.  Gray.  p.  382.  The  Ohio 
Company  soon  saw  the  wisdom  of  the  policy  of  anticipation. 


256  LYNCH   LAW. 

"  It  was  not  long  before  a  complaint  was  made 
against  Paddy  Grimes  for  robbing  a  truck-patch, 
on  which  the  sheriff  was  commanded  to  arrest  him 
and  summon  a  jury  for  his  trial.  Tlie  order  was 
obeyed ;  and  on  hearing  the  evidence,  the  jury 
found  him  guilty,  and  he  was  sentenced  to  receive 
twenty-nine  lashes,  which  were  inflicted  in  due 
form  on  the  same  afternoon."  ^  Thougli  the  crime 
and  the  punishment  did  not  rise  to  any  high  grade 
of  dignity,  as  when  the  five  outlaws  fired  into  the 
tepee  at  Bannack,  killing  three  Indians  and  a 
Frenchman,  and  when  Plummer,  Eay,  and  Stin- 
son  were  hung  in  the  same  city  for  sundry  rob- 
beries and  murders,  the  proceedings  were  the 
same  in  kind  and  in  principle,  and  moreover  by 
men  not  yet  a  year  out  of  conservative  Xew  Eng- 
land. Sometimes  the  aggravations  were  great  and 
the  necessities  imperious  to  take  summary  process 
and  redress  wrongs  promptly.  In  1790  Judge 
lunes  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  War  that  within 
the  last  seven  years  "  he  could  venture  to  say  tliat 
more  than  fifteen  hundred  persons  had  been  killed 
and  taken  prisoners  by  the  Indians,  and  that  up- 
ward of  twenty  thousand  horses  had  been  taken 
and  carried  off  with  other  property,  .  .  .  The  tardy 
movements  of  the  General  Government  were  criti- 
cised with  great  severity  ;  and  men  of  influence  on 
the  frontier  were  deliberating  on  the  expediency  of 
taking  their  protection  into  their  own  hands.  .  .  . 
^  Burnett's  Notes  on  the  Northwest  Territory,  p.  57. 


LYNCH    LAW.  257 

He  assured  tlie  War  Department  that  volunteer 
expeditions  would  be  carried  into  the  Indian  coun- 
try, as  well  for  the  purpose  of  revenge  as  for  pro- 
tection and  self-preservation ;  .  .  .  that  they  have 
long  groaned  under  their  misfortunes  and  see  no 
prospect  of  relief."  ^ 

Kentucky  antedates  California  seventy -six  years 
in  the  same  principles  and  policy  of  a  government 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people.  On  the  23d  of 
May,  1775,  Daniel  Boone  and  his  sixteen  asso- 
ciates, acting  for  the  four  cabin  settlements  of  hunt- 
ers and  frontier  families,  met  under  a  great  elm, 
where  now  Boonesborough  stands.  Prayers  were 
offered,  and  then  the  business  of  the  people's  Con- 
vention, to  frame  and  ordain  the  jfirst  civil  laws  for 
Kentucky,  was  formally  opened.  Colonel  Hender- 
son said  :  "  You  are  assembled  for  a  noble  purpose. 
...  As  justice  is  and  must  be  eternally  the  same, 
so  your  laws,  founded  in  wisdom,  will  gather 
strength  by  time.  .  .  .  If  any  doubt  remain  amongst 
you  with  respect  to  the  force  or  efficacy  of  what- 
ever laws  you  now  or  hereafter  make,  be  pleased  to 
consider  that  all  power  is  originally  in  the  people." 
A  few  days  afterward  the  same  thing  was  said 
at  Bunker  HilL  "  We  represent  the  good  people 
of  this  infant  country,"  responded  the  Convention. 
Between  their  sessions  the  Sabbath  intervened, 
and  they  converted  their  council-chamber,  the 
great  elm,  into  a  church  and  worshipped. 

J  Burnett's  Notes  on  the  Northwest  Territory,  pp.  90-92. 
17 


258  LYNCH   LAW. 

"  They  shook  the  depths  of  the  desert's  gloom 
With  their  hymns  of  lofty  cheer." 

"  Thus  began  the  Commonwealth  of  Kentucky."  ^ 

Our  constantly  emigrating  border,  extending 
from  the  British  to  the  Mexican  boundaries,  has 
been  marked  every  year  by^)?'^  tcjnjjore  legislation, 
when  the  leaders  of  the  young  communities  felt 
it  necessary  to  energize  the  existing  laws,  or  open 
new  cliannels  for  the  popular  will,  or  put  a  sudden 
hand  on  outlawry. 

Bancroft  well  states  the  fact  and  sentiment  for 
the  United  States,  when  referring  to  the  daring 
resistance  which  Captain  Wads  worth  successfully 
offered  to  the  encroachments  of  the  Crown  on  the 
liberties  of  the  young  Colony  of  Hartford  in  1693, 
then  a  frontier  town :  "  It  is  the  fortune  of  our 
America,  that  if  in  any  moment  the  happiness  of 
the  State  depended  on  the  will  of  one  man,  that 
man  was  true  to  his  duty."^ 

To  recur  once  more  to  Judge  Burnett  and  his 
court  sessions  in  those  territorial  days  of  Ohio,  he 
says  that  the  seats  of  justice  "  were  at  that  time 
separated  from  each  other  by  extensive  tracts  of 
uninhabited  wilderness  stretching  from  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  to  two  hundred  miles,  without  roads, 
bridges,  or  fences."  ^     Between  these  distant  cen- 

1  Bancroft's  History  of  tlie  United  States,  vol.  vii.  pp.  367- 
369;  Collins's  Kentucky,  vol.  ii.  p.  508  ;  Shaler's  Kentucky,  pp. 
68-70. 

2  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  iii.  pp.  67,  68. 

^  Notes  on  the  Northwest  Territory,  p.  65. 


■i 


LYNCH   LAAV.  259 

tres  of  justice,  and  in  the  long  lapses  of  time  be- 
tween the  sessions  of  the  court,  either  in  the  early 
Northwest  Territory,  or  in  Montana,  or,  as  we  found 
it,  in  Wyoming,  equity  in  self-protection  must 
sometimes  work  inorganically,  while  the  letter  of 
the  law  is  impatiently  waited  for,  over  roads  and 
bridges  and  ferries  yet  to  be  built. 

What  Monette  says,  covering  our  border  lands 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  between  1770  and  1810, 
has  been  true  ever  since  of  our  frontier  settle- 
ments, and  will  continue  so  till  our  frontier  is 
exhausted :  "  Although  the  pioneers  in  the  West 
were  a  hardy,  enterprising,  honest  race  of  men,  yet 
the  frontier  settlements  are  often  a  retreat  for  loose 
and  unprincipled  individuals  from  the  old  settle- 
ments, who,  if  not  familiar  with  crime,  have  very 
blunt  perceptions  of  virtue.  The  genuine  pioneer, 
the  woodsman,  is  independent,  brave,  and  upright ; 
but,  as  the  jackal  follows  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
lion,  so  the  sturdy  hunter  is  followed  by  the  mis- 
creant destitute  of  noble  qualities,  —  men  who  are 
the  pests  of  the  human  race,  averse  to  labor,  im- 
patient of  the  wholesome  restraints  of  law  or  the 
courtesies  of  civilized  life.  Some,  indeed,  are  des- 
jjeradoes  flying  from  justice,  to  escape  the. grasp  of 
the  law  in  older  settlements ;  and  in  the  frontier 
settlements  he  bids  the  civil  law  defiance.  For 
sucli  intruders  the  frontiers  had  a  law  of  their 
own,  a  lex  loci,  known  as  Lynch  law,  which 
seldom   failed   to   purge    tlie    community   of   his 


260  LYNCH   LAW. 

unwelcome  presence.  Its  operation  was  often 
indispensable  wlien  a  horse-thief,  a  counterfeiter, 
or  other  desperate  vagabond  infested  tlie  neighbor- 
hood, evading  justice  l)y  cunning,  or  by  a  strong 
audacious  arm,  or  by  the  number  of  his  confed- 
erates. The  citizens  formed  themselves  into  a 
regulating  party,  commonly  known  as  '  regulators,' 
a  kind  of  holy  brotherhood  whose  duty  required 
them  to  purge  the  neighborhood  of  such  unruly 
members.  Mounted,  armed,  and  commanded  by  a 
leader,  they  proceeded  to  arrest  the  object  of  their 
mission."  1  After  fair  trial,  punishment  followed 
immediately,  and  fitting  to  the  crime. 

Two  considerations  must  be  entertained  in  mak- 
ing a  fair  judgment  of  this  method  of  border  gov- 
ernment. In  our  theory  of  governing,  the  power 
to  make  and  execute  law  inheres  in  the  people ; 
and  in  the  novel  growth  of  our  settlements  into 
new  country,  government  arrives  after  the  people 
arrive,  —  or  rather,  is  started  by  them  as  all  other 
local  interests  are  started,  and  for  that  locality, 
and  for  those  conditions,  dc  novo.  Precedents  can 
be  found  only  for  civil  proceedings  of  the  most 
general  kind. 

For  illustration,  here  is  Leadville,  as  we  found 
it  in  1880,  two  years  old,  with  twelve  thousand 
inhabitants.  Of  different  nationalities  and  from 
every  State  in  the  Union ;  unknown  to  each  other ; 

1  Monette's  History  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  1846.  Vol. 
ii.  pp.  16,  17. 


LYNCH   LAW.  261 

adventurers,  mauy  of  them  most  honorable,  with  a 
large  proportion  of  the  desperate  and  degraded  and 
criminal  of  both  sexes  ;  under  the  high  pressure  of 
a  ruining  excitement,  which  is  the  highest  known 
to  any  lawful  calling ;  every  day  twenty-four  hours 
of  work,  old-fashioned  sunrise  and  sunset  "  played 
out,"  as  was  remarked  to  me  there ;  drinking  and 
gambling  saloons  crowded  by  day,  with  debauching, 
underground,  and  systematized  "  hells  "  by  night ; 
and  an  average  of  two  violent  deaths  a  week  for 
the  last  thirty  weeks,  and  no  single  conviction 
and  execution  for  manslaughter,  as  one  of  the  po- 
lice informed  us,  —  what  precedents  are  there  for 
governing  such  a  city  ?  Its  age,  size,  quality  of 
citizenship,  and  business  ardor  are  without  par- 
allel, except  in  the  mining  districts  of  the  United 
States. 

The  extempore  handling  of  the  best  interests  of 
a  mining  camp  or  rushing  town  of  a  few  years' 
growth  by  honorable  and  orderly  men,  must  not 
be  judged  by  the  traditional  and  conservative  and 
grooved  system  of  one  of  the  old  thirteen  States. 
The  true  men  of  the  place  will  show  themselves 
to  be  the  men  for  the  times,  and  they  will  dis- 
cover that  methods  of  relief  are  twin-born  with 
emergencies. 

When  sheriff  or  judge  or  a  part  of  the  jurymen, 
each  or  all,  may  be  known  to  be  in  league  with 
the  accused,  it  must  not  seem  strange  if  primitive 
rights  assert  themselves  to  expedite  things,  and 


262  LYNCH    LAW. 

equity  ignores  conventional  forms  and  comes  to 
the  front  suddenly  with  a  stride.  Where  coon 
and  beaver  and  coyote  skins  have  taken  the  place 
of  the  ermine,  other  variations  may  be  expected, 
and  must  be  tolerated  on  the  bench. 

The  relief,  and  the  promise  for  an  orderly,  pros- 
perous, yet  at  the  same  time  intensely  earnest 
future  were  already  in  Leadville  in  germ.  The 
usual  churches,  feeble,  devout,  and  energetic,  were 
starting.  Sabbath,  mission,  and  day  schools,  all 
under  the  stinmlus  and  patronage  of  these  churches, 
were  founded,  and  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation also.  Nobler  bands  of  workers  for  Church 
and  State  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  our  oldest 
cities.  It  seemed  as  if  Lynch  law  must  come  in 
to  rule  the  city  the  coming  winter,  when  the  wild 
storms  should  drive  the  miners  down  from  the 
mountains  and  out  of  the  caiions,  and  pack  the 
saloons  and  dens  of  the  place.  These  moral  and 
educating  forces  met  the  emergency,  and  a  Lynch 
court,  so  much  to  be  dreaded,  yet  sometimes 
needed,  was  not  found  necessary,  and  was  not  held. 
The  crisis  was  passed  without  rope  or  banishment. 
These  same  forces,  educational  and  social  and  moral 
and  Christian,  are  the  last  reliance,  and  the  only 
real  power  to  hold  barbarism  in  check  and  lead 
civilization  to  the  frontier. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE    WEST.  263 


CHAPTER  XL 

EASTERN   JEALOUSY  AND  NEGLECT    OF   THE   WEST. 

WASHINGTON  made  eight  tours  into  the 
West.  After  returning  from  the  seventh 
to  the  headquarters  of  the  army  at  Newburgh, 
where  it  was  quietly  awaiting  the  conclusion  of 
the  negotiations  for  peace,  he  thus  wrote  to  the 
Chevalier  de  Chastellux,  Oct.  12,  1783  :  "  Prompted 
by  these  actual  observations,  I  could  not  help 
taking  a  more  extensive  view  of  the  vast  inland 
navigation  of  these  United  States  from  maps  and 
the  information  of  others ;  and  could  not  but  be 
struck  witli  the  immense  extent  and  importance 
of  it,  and  with  the  goodness  of  that  Providence 
which  has  dealt  its  favors  to  us  with  so  profuse 
a  hand.  AVould  to  God  we  may  have  wisdom 
enough  to  improve  them.  I  shall  not  rest  con- 
tented till  I  have  explored  the  Western  country, 
and  traversed  those  lines,  or  a  great  part  of  them, 
which  have  given  bounds  to  a  new  empire."  ^ 

After  returning  from  his  eighth  tour  in  the  fol- 
lowing  year  (1784),  he  wrote  to  Governor  Harrison 
of  Virginia  his  impressions  made  by  it,  and  the 

^  Sparks's  Writings  of  Washington,  vol.  viii.  p.  489. 


264  EASTERN    JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST. 

letter  is  almost  a  state  paper  t'roni  its  scope.  Fore- 
casting tlio  development  of  that  immense  extent 
of  country,  which  lie  is  moved  to  call  "  a  new  em- 
pire," intrusted  by  divine  favors  to  the  young  re- 
public, and  referring  to  the  vigorous  settlements 
there,  and  anticipating  the  States  to  come  out  of 
it,  he  adds :  "  When  they  get  strength,  which  will 
be  sooner  than  most  people  conceive,"  ^  etc.  A 
century  now,  and  more,  has  been  filling  the  East 
with  surprises  by  the  fulfilments  of  that  prophecy. 
Irving  well  says:  "The  suggestions  of  Washington 
in  his  letter  to  the  governor,  and  his  represen- 
tation, during  this  visit  to  Eichmond,  gave  the 
first  impulse  to  the  great  system  of  internal  im- 
provements since  pursued  throughout  the  United 
States."  2 

Those  eight  Western  tours,  short  for  a  travelling 
salesman  of  to-day,  but  then  very  extended,  ele- 
vated Washington  from  a  provincial  to  a  conti- 
nental statesman,  and  enabled  him  to  say,  from 
travel  and  study,  what  few  have  been  able  to 
say,  then  or  since,  —  that  the  West  would  show 
great  strength  "sooner  than  most  people  conceive." 
That  growth  has  ever  since  kept  in  advance  of  the 
conceptions  of  the  average  Atlantic  statesman,  and 
is  constantly  surprising  even  the  students  of  West- 
ern  development,     A   few   aggregate   statements, 

1  Sparks's  Writings  of  Washington,  vol.  ix.  p.  62,  Octo- 
ber 10,  1784. 

2  Life  of  W£(shington,  vol.  iv,  p.  459. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE    WEST.  265 

made  up  to  1880,  will  confirm  tlie  prediction  of 
Washington  and  the  comments  which  we  have 
made  on  it. 

Of  the  thirty-five  cities  classed  in  the  last  census 
as  having  a  population  of  fifty  thousand  or  more 
each,  fifteen  of  them  are  beyond  the  Alleghanies. 
Even  Boston,  after  all  its  annexations,  is  shut  in, 
for  its  numerical  position,  between  Chicago  and 
St.  Louis,  —  the  latter  a  foreign  town  when  Wash- 
ington made  the  tour,  and  the  former  not  born  till 
near  half  a  century  afterward. 

Between  1870  and  1880,  the  population  of  the 
United  States  incresaed  11,920,000.  When  it  is 
considered  that  the  centre  of  population  in  1880 
was  eight  miles  west  by  south  from  the  heart  of 
the  city  of  Cincinnati,  it  will  be  seen  that  much  of 
this  increase  must  have  been  in  the  West ;  and 
that  centre  is  about  two  hundred  and  twenty  miles 
farther  west  than  any  point  which  Washington 
reached.  He  gained  his  impressions  of  "  the  im- 
mense extent  and  importance  "  of  the  United  States 
without  crossing  the  meridian  of  Cincinnati. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  all  the  food  supplies, 
for  American  tables  totally,  and  for  European  so 
largely,  are  furnished  almost  wholly  by  the  West. 
All  the  wheat  of  'New  England  would  not  call  for 
her  hot  ovens  three  weeks  a  year.  All  the  oats 
raised  in  New  England  in  1880  would  feed  all  the 
working-horses  of  the  country  only  tliree  days,  at 
a  peck  a  day. 


266  EASTERN'   JEALOUSY    OF   TIIE   WEST. 

It  will  be  observed  tliut  the  most  of  these  items, 
as  population,  live-stock  and  cereals,  and  the  prac- 
tical and  special  metals,  which  have  carried  our 
nation,  in  a  century,  to  the  fulfilment  of  Washing- 
ton's predictions,  and  to  the  very  front  among  the 
nations  of  the  world,  were  produced  "  out  West." 
The  aggregates  given  may  not  be  unfamiliar  to  our 
princely  and  international  men  of  commerce,  and 
to  eminent  railroad  men  ;  but  the  great  body  of  the 
people  receive  such  statements  with  profound  sur- 
prise, and  with  the  scepticism  usually  underlying 
the  saying,  "  Western  stories."  These  inunense 
gains  of  national  strength  have  come  "sooner  than 
most  people  conceived." 

The  very  extent  and  development  of  our  new 
country  have  put  it  to  a  disadvantage  before  the 
older  sections  as  regards  its  areas  and  increase  and 
importance  to  the  entire  body  politic,  by  compel- 
ling statements  of  them  whicli  seem  incredible  to 
the  unread  and  untravelled.  Sometimes  a  lack  of 
apprehension  has  been  followed,  rationally,  by  a 
lack  of  appreciation  ;  and  sometimes  it  has  been  so 
far  measured  and  estimated  as  to  create  jealousy 
and  stimulate  repression  by  the  older  States.  As 
to  any  attempts,  however,  locally  and  provincially, 
or  nationally,  to  repress  Western  growth,  it  proved 
as  futile  as  to  serve  an  injunction  on  an  active  vol- 
cano, or  move  to  stay  proceedings  in  the  process  of 
an  eclipse.  Yet  our  history  is  not  barren  in  this 
line.     Failure  to  foresee  and  anticipate  has  led  to 


EASTERN  JEALOUSV  OF  THE  -WEST.     2G7 

some  unfortunate  neglects,  and  tlie  loss  of  grand 
opportunities.  Wealth  has  rare  foreknowledge, 
and  the  bees  have  discovered  rich  fields  afar  and 
made  new  hives  in  them  ;  while  sedentary  benevo- 
lence has  indulged  memories  rather  than  anticipa- 
tions, and  worked  over  and  over  again  the  some- 
what exhausted  acres  of  the  fathers. 

In  his  own  delicate  and  comprehensive  way 
Washington  hinted  at  the  neglect  of  the  West  by 
the  Atlantic  East,  which  feeling  he  soon  saw  de- 
veloped, even  to  opposition.  The  letter  of  General 
Putnam  to  him  in  1783  revealed  a  chance  for  a 
noble  movement  into  the  West,  and  he  gave  it  his 
favor,  and  soon  learned  how  sceptical  and  suspi- 
cious the  East  was  of  the  West.  Tlie  letter  was 
more  than  an  epistle,  in  both  volume  and  topic, 
and  will  hold  place  among  eminent  jiapers  on  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  as  inaugurating  both  the  Ohio 
Company  and  a  general  policy.  By  Act  of  Con- 
gress, Oct.  27,  1787,  then  in  session  at  Kew  York, 
grants  of  wild  lands  in  the  Northwest  Territory 
were  made  to  the  company,  amounting  to  near 
five  millions  of  acres.  In  obtaining  tliese  lands 
it  acted  for  other  parties  jointly  with  itself,  and 
finally  obtained  as  its  own  904,285  acres,  and 
Washington  signed  many  of  the  patents,  May 
10,  1792.  The  Eev.  Dr.  Manasseh  Cutler  acted 
as  agent  for  the  company  before  Congress.  In  a 
diary,  quite  minute,  he  says :  "  The  delegates  from 
Massachusetts,  although  exceedingly  worthy  men. 


268  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST. 

and  in  general  would  wish  to  promote  the  Ohio 
scheme,  yet,  if  it  should  militate  against  the  par- 
ticular interest  of  this  State,  by  draining  her  of 
inhabitants,  especially  when  she  is  forming  the 
plan  of  selling  the  Eastern  country  [Province  of 
Maine],  I  thought  they  would  not  be  very  warm 
advocates  in  our  favor ;  and  I  dare  not  trust  my- 
self with  any  of  the  New  York  delegates  with 
whom  I  am  acquainted,  because  that  government 
is  wisely  inviting  the  Eastern  people  to  settle  in 
that  State.  .  .  .  Few,  Bingham,  and  Kearney  are 
our  principal  opposers.  .  .  .  New  York,  Connecti- 
cut, and  Massachusetts  would  sell  us  lauds  at  half 
a  dollar  an  acre."  ^ 

The  opposition  which  the  Ohio  Company  encoun- 
tered in  Mr.  Bingham  was  Eastern  and  personal 
and  financial.  This  William  Bingham,  to  whom 
reference  has  been  made,  then  delegate  from  Penn- 
sylvania, was  about  this  time  the  owner  of  nearly 
two  and  a  half  million  acres  of  wild  land  in  the 
Province  of  Maine,  and  naturally  would  oppose 
the  schemes  before  the  Continental  Congress,  to 
put  five  millions  of  Ohio  land  on  the  public 
market.  There  were  other  heavy  Eastern  opera- 
tions in  wild  land  which  stood  in  the  way  of 
the  Ohio  movement,  and  one  more  may  be 
stated.  In  a  letter  to  his  Secretary  of  State, 
Washington  says  :  "  It  will  be  fortunate  for  the 

1  Walker's  History  of  Athens  County,  Ohio,  pp.  38,  39,  65, 

67  et  alibi. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST.  269 

American  public  if  private  speculations  in  lands 
still  claimed  by  the  aborigines  do  not  aggravate 
those  differences  which  policy,  humanity,  and  jus- 
tice concur  to  deprecate." 

To  this  Sparks,  editing  the  writings  of  Washing- 
ton, adds  this  note  :  "  Alluding  to  the  large  pur- 
chasers of  new  lands,  situated  in  the  eastern  part 
of  Massachusetts,  which  had  recently  been  made 
by  Kobert  Morris,  of  Gorliam  and  Phillips.  The 
quantity,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  was  1,300,000 
acres,  at  five  pence  an  acre,  with  an  additional 
tract  for  the  gross  sura  of  X  100,000." 

This  additional  tract,  at  the  same  price,  would 
be  4,800,000  acres,  —  total  purchase  by  Morris,  of 
6,100,000  acres.i 

When  Louisiana  was  added  to  our  domain  in 
1803,  the  question  of  its  settlement  by  immigra- 
tion became  a  leading,  and  at  times  a  very  warm 
one.  Under  the  treaty  of  cession  Major  Amos 
Stoddard  took  charge  of  the  Upper  Province  for 
the  United  States,  and  thus  states  the  great 
question :  "  Will  the  United  States  permit  the 
sale  of  the  public  lands  in  Louisiana,  and  by 
this  measure  encourage  the  settlement  of  that 
country  ?  ...  It  has  been  suggested  that,  the 
more  effectually  to  promote  the  national  interests, 
we  must  first  dispose  of  the  public  lands  on  the 
east  side  of  the  Mississippi.  .  .  .  Settlers  enter- 

1  Sparks's  Writings  of  Washington  (Letter  to  Jefferson, 
April  1,  1791),   vol.  x.  p.  151. 


270  EASTERN    JEALOUSY    OF    THE    WEST. 

tain  a  predilection  for  the  lands  in  the  Upper 
Louisiana."  ^ 

Here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Ohio  Company,  the 
sale  and  settlement  of  the  new  lands  in  the  West  are 
made  of  doubtful  policy  because  the  East  has  so 
much  unsold  on  the  market.  When  the  acquisition 
of  Louisiana  was  probable,  either  by  negotiation  or 
conquest,  popular  discussion  took  up  the  topic,  and 
in  a  tract  those  who  wished  it  through  war  are  thus 
set  forth :  "  Tlie  speculators  of  all  kinds  anticipate 
new  scenes  for  their  rapacity,  and  the  Eastern 
States  indulge  their  apprehensions  of  the  rising 
prosperity  and  strength  of  the  Western."  ^ 

Another  author  pleads  the  seaboard  side  of  this 
question  more  pointedly,  and  shows  the  advantage 
of  the  purchase  f5r  the  East,  "  in  having  effectually 
secured  ourselves  against  future  rivalship  in  the 
sales  of  our  lands  on  this  side  the  Mississippi. 
Our  Western  lands  now  command  two  dollars  per 
acre  at  the  lowest."  ^  Here  is  the  plan  to  keep 
up  the  price  of  wild  land  east  of  the  Mississippi, 
then  much  in  private  hands  and  tending  that  way, 
by  withholding  the  new  purchase  from  the  market. 
But  it  did  not  succeed,  and  the  price  dropped  to 
one  dollar  and  a  quarter.     The  author  goes  on  to 

1  Sketches,  Historical  and  Descriptive,  of  Louisiana.  By 
Major  Amos  Stoddard.     1812.    pp.   259-262. 

2  The  Mississippi  Question  Fairly  Stated.  By  Camillus. 
1803. 

3  Reflections  on  the  Cession  of  Louisiana  to  the  United  States. 
By  Sylvestris.     Aug.  10,  1803. 


EASTEKN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST.  271 

say  of  the  purchase:  "It  secures  us  against  the 
danger  of  depopulation  by  emigration  from  tliese 
States  to  Louisiana.  .  .  .  The  rage  for  acquiring 
lands  in  Louisiana  and  migrating  thither  to  settle, 
if  encouraged,  must  at  no  very  distant  day  weaken 
and  reduce  the  population  in  the  Atlantic  States, 
and  not  improbably  all  that  lie  eastward  of  the 
Mississippi.  The  consequence  of  such  a  reduction 
must  prove  ultimately  fatal  to  the  United  States, 
for  we  may  boldly  pronounce  that  the  confederacy 
can  never  be  permanently  extended  beyond  the 
Mississippi,  nor  preserved  among  its  present  num- 
bers, whenever  Louisiana  shall  become  a  populous 
country.  Whenever  that  event  takes  place,  the 
constellation  of  the  present  United  States  will 
probably  set  forever." 

Yet  Iowa  and  Minnesota  and  Missouri  and 
Kansas  have  not  caused  even  an  eclipse  of  that 
constellation ! 

"  Must  we,  then,  never  dispose  of  this  immense 
quantity  of  valuable  lands  which  we  have  pur- 
chased at  such  a  price  ?  No,  never,  as  long  as  the 
United  States  have  lands  to  dispose  of  and  settle 
on  this  side  the  Mississippi.  ...  In  no  possible 
view  can  I  perceive  any  benefit  likely  to  result 
to  the  United  States  by  opening  a  land  office  in 
Louisiana,  whilst  a  thousand  mischiefs  threaten  to 
flow  from  any  attempt  of  the  kind."  ^ 

1  Reflections  on  the  Cession  of  Louisiana  to  the  United 
States,  pp.  16,  22,  23,  24. 


272  EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST. 

And  "  Sylvestris  "  finally  balances  liis  hopes  and 
fears  over  the  Louisiana  purchase  with  a  plausible 
ejaculation,  in  a  pagan  tongue,  that  the  United 
States  might  discover  the  fact  that  they  are  already 
well  off.i 

In  1807  Ehea  of  Tennessee  proposed  in  the 
House  some  surveys  in  Louisiana,  that  more  of 
the  public  lands  might  be  put  on  the  market; 
but  Varuum  of  Massachusetts  opposed  the  scheme, 
since  it  would  put  on  the  market  lands  competing 
with  those  of  the  East,  and  it  was  laid  over. 

A  political  and  partisan  and  provincial  philippic 
will  show  some  of  the  darker  shades  of  this  ques- 
tion, as  set  in  New  England  light,  when  the  ad- 
mission of  the  State  of  Louisiana  was  claiming 
attention :  "  There  is  no  subject  of  complaint 
against  the  Democratic  administration  which  pre- 
sents such  a  variety  of  disgraceful  features,  which 
involved  so  many  and  so  various  causes  of  censure, 
in  its  origin,  principles,  progress,  and  effects,  as  this 
shameful  purchase  of  a  colony  of  Frenchmen.  In 
its  origin  it  was  corrupt.  ...  In  its  principles  it 
was  hostile  to  our  Constitution  and  unfriendly  to 
our  republican  habits.  ...  In  its  effects  it  has 
been  a  vast  whirlpool  which  has  not  only  swal- 
lowed up  the  original  purchase-money  of  eleven 
millions  and  a  half,  but  the  immense  sums  which 
have  been  expended  in  exploring  its  unknown 
frontiers  ;  in  regulating,  with  France,  the  adjust- 

1  "  0  fortunali,  nimium,  sua  si  bona  noverint/" 


EASTERN  JEALOUSY  OF  THE  WEST.     273 

ment  of  boundaries  purposely  left  unsettled ;  iu 
fortificatious  and  a  navy  for  its  defence,  as  well 
as  the  maintenance  of  an  army  who  have  gone 
thither  only  to  fertilize  its  soil  with  their  misera- 
ble remains.  .  .  .  The  origin  of  this  monstrous 
purchase,  the  effects  of  which  will  be  felt  to  our 
latest  posterity,  it  is  well  known  is  to  be  found  in 
the  necessity  which  the  transmontane  or  Western 
States  were  under  to  have  the  free  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi  ...  all  to  be  charged  to  the  ac- 
count of  those  backwoodsmen  who  are  so  hostile  to 
commercial  interests,"  etc.-^ 

It  would  be  unjust  to  the  topic  in  hand  not  to 
introduce  evidence  from  another  source,  and  all 
the  more  worthy  as  furnished  by  a  representative 
and  deliberative  body.  What  the  Hartford  Con- 
vention of  1814  was  called  to  do,  or  did,  or  failed 
to  do,  does  not  concern  our  inquiry.  Only  its  ex- 
pressed sentiments  on  the  East  as  related  to  the 
West  are  now  pertinent. 

In  reporting  the  causes  which  the  committee  of 
the  Convention  thought  had  sadly  depressed  the 
commerce,  manufactures,  trade,  and  general  busi- 
ness of  New  England,  they  state  this  as  the  sixth  : 
"The  admission  of  new  States  into  the  Union, 
formed  at  pleasure  in  the  western  region,  has  de- 
stroyed the  balance  of  power  which  existed  among 

^  The  New  England  Patriot  :  Being  a  candid  comparison 
of  the  principles  and  conduct  of  the  Washington  and  Jefferson 
administrations.     Boston,  1810,  pp.  58,  59. 

18 


274  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF  THE   WEST. 

the    original    States,   and   deeply   affected    their 
interest." 

In  recommending  measures  of  action  for  relief 
and  future  safety,  a  second  committee  reported : 
"  That  it  is  expedient  to  make  provision  for 
re.straiuing  Congress  in  the  exercise  of  an  unlim- 
ited power  to  make  new  States  and  admit  them 
into  the  Union,"  So  far  as  the  records  show, 
this  recommendation  was  adopted.  In  commend- 
ing this  restriction  of  congressional  pcJwer,  the 
first  committee,  in  their  report,  say :  "  By  the 
admissions  of  these  States  that  balance  (between 
the  original  thirteen)  has  been  materially  af- 
fected, and  unless  the  practice  be  modified,  must 
ultimately  be  destroyed.  The  Southern  States 
will  first  avail  themselves  of  their  new  confed- 
erates to  govern  the  East ;  and  finally  the  Western 
States,  multiplied  in  number  and  augmented  in 
population,  will  control  the  interests  of  the  whole. 
.  .  .  Those  who  are  immediately  concerned  in  the 
prosecution  of  commerce  will,  of  necessity,  be  al- 
ways a  minority  of  the  nation.  They  are,  however, 
best  qualified  to  manage  and  direct  its  course  by 
the  advantages  of  experience  and  the  sense  of  in- 
terest. But  they  are  entirely  unable  to  protect 
themselves  against  tlie  sudden  and  injudicious 
decisions  of  bare  majorities,  and  the  mistaken  or 
oppressive  projecte  of  those  who  are  not  actively 
concerned  in  its  pursuits.  Of  consequence,  this 
interest  is  always   exposed  to  be  harassed,  inter- 


EASTERN    JEALOUSY   OF   THE    WEST.  275 

rupted,  and  entirely  destroyed,  upon  pretence  of 
securing  other  interests.  Had  the  merchants  of 
this  nation  been  permitted  by  their  own  govern- 
ment to  pursue  an  innocent  and  lawful  course, 
how  different  w'ould  have  been  the  state  of  the 
treasury  and  the  public  credit !  .  .  The  immense 
population  which  has  swarmed  into  the  West,  re- 
mote from  immediate  danger,  and  which  is  con- 
stantly augmenting,  will  not  be  averse  from  the 
occasional  disturbances  of  the  Atlantic  States."^ 

As  the  results  of  one  hundred  years  show,  Jef- 
ferson had  broad  and  forecasting  views  as  to  the 
ownership  of  Louisiana,  and  it  would  be  difficult 
to  name  another  act  of  statesmanship  which  has 
so  rounded  up  the  republic  with  grace  and  strength 
and  promise  :  "  We  should  take  care  not  to  think 
it  for  the  interest  of  that  great  continent  to  press 
too  soon  upon  the  Spaniards.  Those  countries 
cannot  be  in  better  hands.  My  fear  is  that  they 
are  too  feeble  to  hold  them  until  our  population 
can  be  sufficiently  advanced  to  gain  it  from  them 
piece  by  piece.  The  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
we  must  have  soon.  This  is  all  we  are  yet  ready 
to  receive."^ 

This  was  in  1786. 

The  unintelligent  neglect  of  the  West  by  the 
East  —  apathy  and  sometimes   opposition  —  may 

1  History  of  the  Hartford  Convention.    By  Tlieodore  Dwight, 
Secretary  of  the  Convention,     pp.  369,  371,  372,  373,  392. 
^  American  State  Papers,  Boston  edition,  vol,  v.  p.  94. 


276     EASTERN  JEALOUSY  OF  THE  WEST. 

be  best  seen  by  groupiii'j;,  somewhat  miscella- 
neously, a  few  scattered  Tacts.  In  1791  Vermont 
prevailed  over  the  opposition  of  Virginia,  North 
and  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  and  entered  tlie 
Union.  Madison,  in  a  paper  furnished  by  himself 
to  Sparks,  says :  "  The  grounds  of  this  opposition 
are,  first,  an  habitual  jealousy  of  a  predominance 
of  Eastern  interests."  ^ 

The  citations  following  go  more  directly  to  show 
a  willingness  to  limit  the  national  growth  west- 
ward. Lieutenant  Pike,  basing  his  remarks  on 
observations  made  in  his  two  exploring  tours 
(1805-07),  says  that  the  prairies,  "incapable  of 
cultivation,"  will  serve  as  "  a  restriction  of  our 
population  to  some  certain  limits,  and  thereby  a 
continuance  of  the  Union."  In  a  letter  to  Astor, 
Jefferson  speaks  of  the  Astorian  enterprise  as  the 
hopeful  germ  of  a  body  of  "  independent  Ameri- 
cans unconnected  with  us  but  by  the  ties  of  blood 
and  interest,  enjoying,  like  us,  the  right  of  self- 
government."  Our  first  Governor  of  the  Upper 
Louisiana,  Major  Stoddard,  enters  this  most  singu- 
lar statement  in  his  "  Sketches,"  so  discouraging 
to  immigration  into  that  exuberant  wheat-field 
of  the  world  :  "  The  country  above  the  Falls  of 
St.  Anthony  will  never  attract  the  attention  of 
the  agriculturalists.  It  is  mostly  of  a  cold  and 
sterile  nature."  In  a  communication  addressed 
to  President  Monroe,  General  Jackson  advances 
1  Writings  of  Washington,  vol.  xii.  S^S. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE    WEST.  277 

this  theory  :  "  Concentrate  our  population,  confine 
our  frontier  to  j)roper  limits,  until  our  country, 
to  those  limits,  is  tilled  with  a  dense  population. 
It  is  the  denseness  of  our  population  that  gives 
strength  and  security  to  our  frontier." 

lu  "Flint's  Travels  in  the  Valley  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, 1815-25,"  the  author  thus  sets  forth,  in 
paraphrase,  the  views  on  the  new  settlers  and 
settlements,  of  a  man  famed  for  his  scholarship, 
offices,  and  published  writings,  among  them  travels 
in  New  England  and  New  York  :  ^  "  I  have  read, 
and  not  without  feelings  of  pain,  the  bitter  repre- 
sentations of  the  learned  Dr.  D wight  in  speaking 
of  them.  He  represents  these  vast  regions  as  a 
kind  of  reservoir  for  the  scum  of  the  Atlantic 
States.  He  characterizes,  in  the  mass,  the  emi- 
grants from  New  England,  as  discontented  cobblers, 
too  proud,  too  much  in  debt,  too  unprincipled,  too 
much  puffed  up  with  self-conceit,  too  strongly  im- 
pressed that  their  fanciful  talents  could  not  find 
scope  in  tlieir  own  country,  to  stay  there." 

These  views  of  the  President  of  Yale  College  — 
not  drawn  from  observation  —  are  quite  in  con- 
trast with  those  of  Daniel  Webster,  in  his  speech 
in  the  Senate  in  1838,  on  "  The  Eight  of  Pre-emp- 
tion," after  he  had  visited  regions  beyond  the 
Mississippi,  and  looked  upon  our  border  men  in 
their  homes :    "  They  have  the  general  character 

1  Travels  in  New  England  and  New  York.  By  Timothy 
Dwight,  D.D.,  LL.D.     Vol.  ii.  Letter  14. 


278  EASTERN   JKALOUSY   OF   TlIK   WEST. 

of  tVoutiursmeii  ;  they  are  liarJy,  adventurous,  and 
enterprising.  Tliey  have  come  from  far  to  estab- 
lish themselves  and  families  in  new  abodes  in  the 
West.  They  appeared  to  me  to  be  industrious 
and  laborious ;  and  I  saw  nothing  in  their  charac- 
ter or  conduct  that  should  justly  draw  upon  them 
expressions  of  contumely  and  reproach."  ^ 

Such  impressions  of  the  West  as  those  given 
by  Dr.  Dwight  have  not  ceased  even  yet,  and 
among  otherwise  learned  men,  who  confine  their 
travels  to  their  family  carriage  and  to  their  native 
New  England  hills.  Bradbury,  an  English  travel- 
ler, who  ventured  so  far  from  home  as  to  spend  the 
years  1809-11  in  the  interior  of  North  America, 
and  while  making  the  discovery  of  the  surprising 
breadth  of  country  between  the  Mississippi  Eiver 
and  the  Eocky  Mountains,  makes  these  uninten- 
tional reflections  on  American  geographers  and 
travellers  :  "  The  territory  west  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  extending  from  that  river  to  the  Eocky  Moun- 
tains, ...  is  not  accurately  known  on  account  of 
the  real  situation  of  the  Eocky  Mountains  not  yet 
being  truly  ascertained.  But  it  appears  from  the 
accounts  of  liunters  and  travellers,  that  on  some 
of  our  best  maps  and  globes  they  are  laid  down 
too  far  to  the  eastward." 

Very   like.      It   is    not   the  Eocky  Mountains 
alone  which  have  been  easily  moved  about  here 
and   there,   and   by  Americans   scholarly  in    the 
i  Webster's  Works,  vol.  iv.  p.  399. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  279 

alcove  and  quite  at  home  in  the  Alps  and  on  the 
Jordan  and  the  Nile  !  A  chapter  of  blunders  iu 
American  geography  would  be  a  choice  entertain- 
ment, and  all  the  contributors  to  it  would  not  be 
foreigners  and  Western  Americans. 

William  Sturgis,  speaking  once,  somewhat  rep- 
resentatively, for  New  England  commerce,  before 
the  Mercantile  Library  Association  in  Boston,  said 
it  would  be  a  less  evil  for  the  American  Union  to 
have  the  Pacific  extend  itself  over  Oregon  Terri- 
tory to  the  base  of  the  Eocky  Mountains,  than 
to  convert  that  Territory  into  new  States  for  the 
Union. 

In  his  admirable  letters,  which  shed  so  much 
light  on  the  Oregon  question,  and  aided  so  much 
to  its  final  and  fortunate  settlement,  Albert  Gal- 
latin, Secretary  of  the  Treasury  from  1801  to  1814, 
favored  the  policy  of  an  undivided  Oregon,  ex- 
tending north  to  fifty-four  degrees  forty  minutes, 
erected  into  an  independent  government.  These 
letters  were  written  in  1846. 

In  his  seat  in  the  lower  House  of  Congress  in 
1844,  Winthrop  guards  against  the  preponderating 
growth  of  the  West  over  the  East,  by  making 
access  to  Oregon  across  the  continent  impossible 
by  nature,  and  speaks  of  "  the  perpetual  snows 
which  nature  has  opposed  to  the  passage  of  this 
disputed  territory ; "  and  again  :  "  The  West  has 
no  interest,  the  country  has  no  interest  in  extend- 
ing  our  territorial   possessions."     And   again    in 


280     EASTERN  JEALOUSY  OF  THE  WEST. 

Congress,  in  1846 :  "  Are  our  Western  brethren 
straitened  for  elbow-room,  or  likely  to  be  for  a 
tliousand  years  ? "  The  "  perpetual  snows  "  have 
proved  to  be  a  figure  of  speech  rather  tlian  a  fact 
in  nature ;  and  from  the  speed  with  which  "  our 
Western  brethren  "  are  filling  up  that  impassable 
and  inhospitable  region,  it  seems  likely  to  be 
necessary  to  shorten  the  "one  thousand  years" 
into  a  hundred  and  less. 

In  the  line  of  thought  which  we  are  now  open- 
ing it  is  a  suggestive  fact  that  "  no  bill  relating  to 
Oregon  was  passed  by  either  House  before  1843, 
nor  was  any  decisive  measure  on  the  subject 
adopted  by  the  American  Government."  ^  It  was 
in  March  of  the  same  year  that  Dr.  Whitman  ended 
his  wonderful  ride  at  Washington,  and  first  fully 
showed  to  the  East  the  value  and  accessibility  of 
Oregon,  and  in  the  summer  took  back  eight  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  emigrants  in  two  hundred 
wagons,  with  thirteen  hundred  head  of  cattle,  and 
thus  saved  Oregon.  Covering  these  and  other 
great  facts,  Gallatin  well  says  in  his  fifth  letter : 
"  Enterprising  individuals  have,  without  any  aid 
or  encouragement  by  Government,  opened  a  wagon 
road  eighteen  hundred  miles  in  length,  through  an 
arid  or  mountainous  region,  and  made  settlements 
on  or  near  the  sliores  of  the  Pacific,  without  any 
guaranty  for  the  possession  of  the  land  improved 
by  their  labors.  .  .  .  Xow  that  the  tide  of  emigra- 

1  Greenhow's  History  of  Oregon  and  California,  p.  379. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  281 

tion  has  turned  in  tlieir  favor,  they  are  suddenly 
invited  to  assume  a  hostile  position,  to  endure  the 
calamities,  and  to  run  the  chances  and  conse- 
quences of  war." 

Early  and  primitive  Oregon  is  a  marked  illus- 
tration of  this  neglect  of  the  West.  The  Gov- 
ernment had  its  claims  on  Oregon,  and  the  founders 
of  the  comiiifT  twentieth  State  in  the  Union  were 
there.  These  were  left  without  civil  government 
or  laws,  except  as  those  of  an  alien  power,  those  of 
the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  were  imposed  on  them. 
So  hemmed  in  were  they  by  the  critical  issues  of 
the  Oregon  controversy,  and  the  nervous  anxieties 
of  the  times,  that  they  could  not  openly  convene 
in  council  to  take  first  steps  from  an  inorganic  to 
an  organic  civil  state.  A  ruse  was  well  planned 
to  supply  the  deficiency  of  Congress.  They  were 
stock-owners,  and  the  wild  animals  preyed  on 
their  herds,  and  they  called  a  "wolf  meeting,"  to 
concert  measures  for  defence,  and  thence  went  up 
from  wild  animals  to  men,  and  established  the 
first  civil  government  of  Oregon. ^  It  was  nothing 
new  for  the  best  blood  and  heroic  spirits  of  the 
Eepublic,  then  at  the  extreme  front  planting  out 
coming  commonwealths,  to  be  left  quite  unaided 
to  struggle  with  wild  animals  and  hostile  Indians. 
The  same  thing  was  common  to  the  border  from 

1  The  History  of  Oregon.  By  W.  H.  Gray.  1870.  Chap, 
xxxiii.  Oregon  :  The  Struggle  for  Possession.  By  W.  Bar- 
rows.    1884.     Chap.  xxvi. 


282         EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF  THE   AVEST. 

earlier  days,  and,  sad  to  say,  is  yet.  The  voice  of 
many  a  John  the  Baptist  is  now  crying  in  the 
■wilderness  of  America,  and  doing  Lrave  and  pa- 
triotic and  Christian  work  for  civilization,  to  whom 
very  scant  stipends  come,  and  often  tardily,  and 
dubious  wardrobes  from  the  very  comfortable  East. 
Judge  Innes  of  Kentucky,  in  a  letter  to  the  War 
Department,  under  date  of  July,  1790,  says:  "All 
measures  heretofore  attempted  for  relief  have  been 
committed  for  execution  to  the  hands  of  strangers 
[Eastern  men]  who  have  no  interest  in  common 
■with  the  West." 

Nor  did  matters  much  or  rapidly  improve  for  the 
advance  belt  of  the  American  nation,  as  the  years 
ran  by.  "The  few  roads  that  crossed  the  mountains 
[the  Alleghanies,  1811]  were  so  wretchedly  bad  that 
the  wagons  toiled  over  them  with  great  difficulty, 
and  a  large  portion  of  the  merchandise  was  carried 
on  the  backs  of  horses.  Even  that  was  considered 
a  triumphant  result  of  enterprise  and  a  rapid  ad- 
vance in  improvement.  For  a  few  years  only  had 
then  advanced  since  Mr.  Brown,  a  delegate  from 
Kentucky  in  Congress,  had  been  smiled  at  as  vis- 
ionary, by  the  members  of  that  august  body,  for 
asking  the  establishment  of  a  mail  to  Pittsburgh, 
to  be  carried  on  horseback  once  in  two  "weeks. 
He  was  told  that  such  a  mail  was  not  needed, 
that  probably  it  would  never  be  required,  and  that 
the  obstacles  of  the  road  were  insuperable."  ^ 

1  Notes  on  the  Western  States.    By  James  Hall.   1832.   p.  225. 


EASTERN    JEALOUSY   OF   THE    WEST.  283 

Benton  had  pointed  out  tlie  same  unwise  and 
cramping  policy  of  the  East  toward  the  new  coun- 
try in  the  discussion  of  the  resolution  of  Mr.  Foote, 
offered  in  the  Senate  in  1829.  Mr.  Foote  was 
Senator  from  Connecticut,  and  may  he  assumed  to 
have  carried  the  ordinary  interests  that  Eastern 
men  then  had  in  visionary  fortunes  in  wild  lands, 
already  purchased,  both  sides  of  the  Alleghanies. 
His  project  was  to  stop  all  survey  and  sales  of 
Government  lands  till  those  already  on  the  public 
market,  at  the  national  land  offices,  were  sold. 
The  opponents  of  the  resolution  urged  that  that 
state  of  things  had  already  been  attained  which 
Webster,  during  the  discussion,  said  would  come 
under  another  system  of  sale,  when  individuals 
would  get  large  quantities  of  land  into  their  hands, 
and  then  "  become  themselves  the  competitors 
with  the  government  in  the  sale  of  land."  The 
East  held  inferior  lands,  which  they  could  not  sell 
without  forcing  the  land  market  to  a  scarcity  of 
supply.  The  resolution  had  this  tendency  and 
apparent  design,  and,  if  enforced,  would  greatly 
damage  the  opening  of  the  new  West.  Hence 
Mr.  Benton  said  :  "  If  the  sales  are  limited  to  the 
lands  now  in  market,  emigration  will  cease  to  flow, 
for  those  lands  [now  in  market]  are  not  of  a  char- 
acter to  attract  people  at  a  distance."  They  were 
the  refuse  of  many  years'  sales,  as  "  shop-worn " 
goods.  It  was  as  if  sharp  speculators  in  wheat 
had  loaded  themselves  heavily  with  inferior  and 


284  EASTRHX    JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST. 

unsalable  grain,  and  would  move  to  stop  receipts 
of  good  grades  till,  under  stress  of  buyers,  they 
could  unload.  These  speculative  capitalists  sought 
thus  to  use  the  Government  for  private  gains  and 
to  help  them  out  of  poor  investments,  by  dwarf- 
ing and  stopping  the  growth  of  the  nation  on 
the  borders.  Benton  urged  that  the  resolution 
would  have  the  effect  of  "  limiting  the  settlements 
in  the  new  States  and  Territories,"  and  by  keeping 
back  first-class  lands  "it  would  deliver  up  large 
portions  of  new  States  and  Territories  to  the 
dominion  of  wild  beasts."  In  the  same  connec- 
tion Benton  said  that  the  scheme  of  the  resolution 
"  was  intended  to  prevent  emigration  to  the  West. 
It  was  a  renewed  effort  to  strangle  the  young  Her- 
cules. Tlie  same  attempt  had  been  systematically 
made  for  forty  years.  The  attempt  came  from 
the  same  quarter  now  as  formerly."  In  comment- 
ing on  the  discussion  as  developing  Eastern  jeal- 
ousy of  the  West  and  a  selfish  willingness  to 
sacrifice  it  to  the  ill-proportioned  growth  of  the 
oldest  States,  he  adds :  "  The  debate  spread  and 
took  an  acrimonious  and  sectional  turn,  imputing 
to  the  quarter  of  the  Union  from  which  it  came 
an  old  and  early  policy  to  check  the  growth  of  the 
West  at  the  outset."  ^ 

The   defence  of  the   East,   in    this  regard,  by 
Webster,  must  not  be  forgotten,  as,  indeed,  there 
is  no  danger.     Out  of  this  resolution  of  Foote  to 
1  Benton's  Thirty  Years'  View,  vol.  i.  pp.  130-132. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  285 

stop  tlie  sales  of  the  public  lands  came  those  two 
remarkable  speeches  of  the  great  statesman,  in 
which  he  defended  New  England  against  varied 
criticisms  and  attacks,  as  summed  up  by  Benton, 
but  formally  and  oratorically  presented  by  Hayne. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  the  English  language,  so 
well  adapted  for  a  forensic  oration,  was  ever  more 
nobly  used.  That  masterly  constitutional  defence 
of  the  American  Union  left  nothing  more  for  ar- 
gument, and  all  remaining  protection  to  the  sword. 
When  the  logical  defence  revived,  in  later  days, 
all  turned  to  that  speecli  for  argument,  and  little 
was  found  that  Webster  had  left  unsaid.  He 
towered  above  all  others  as  a  fortress  of  strength, 
and  those  who  looked  for  a  peaceable  preservation 
of  tlie  Union  turned  to  him,  saying :  "  Thy  neck 
is  like  the  tower  of  David  builded  for  an  armory, 
whereon  there  hang  a  thousand  bucklers,  all 
shields  of  mighty  men."  The  prayer  of  his  great 
American  heart  was  answered,  yet  not  much 
in  advance  of  the  visions  he  feared :  "  When  my 
eyes  shall  be  turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time 
the  sun  in  heaven,  may  I  not  see  him  shining  on 
the  broken  and  dishonored  fragments  of  a  once 
glorious  Union,  —  on  States  dissevered,  discordant, 
belligerent,  —  on  a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds,  or 
drenched,  it  may  be,  in  fraternal  blood ! " 

His  defence,  however,  of  the  East,  which  should 
lie  rather  in  the  line  of  facts  than  of  oratory,  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  as  conclusive  as  his  con- 


286  EASTKUN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE    WEST. 

stitutional  avL^nunont  for  tlie  Union.  His  defence 
of  the  East  is  made  up  mostly  of  well-rounded  and 
energetic  affirmations  and  denials.  His  strongest 
point  is  put  first :  "  It  appears  that  we  have,  at 
this  moment,  surveyed  and  in  the  market,  ready 
for  sale,  two  hundred  and  ten  millions  of  acres  or 
thereabouts."  He  also  says,  and  to  the  honor  of 
New  England :  "In  1820  the  people  of  the  West 
besought  Congress  for  a  reduction  in  the  price  of 
lands.  In  favor  of  that  reduction,  New  England, 
with  a  delegation  of  forty  members  in  the  other 
House,  gave  thirty-three  votes,  and  one  only  against 
it.  .  .  .  In  1821  the  law  passed  for  the  relief  of 
the  purchasers  of  the  public  lands,"  for  which 
New  England  gave  more  votes  than  the  South, 
who  had  a  delegation  one  fourth  larger.  At  that 
time  the  Government  was  selling  its  lands  on 
credit,  and  this  law  eased  the  purchasers,  now  in 
arrears,  at  the  rate  of  about  thirty-seven  cents  to 
the  acre.  The  total  relinquished  by  the  Govern- 
ment under  this  law  was  six  or  seven  millions  of 
dollars.^ 

For  the  rest,  the  defence  is  mainly  declarative  : 
"  I  rise  to  defend  the  East.  I  rise  to  repel  both 
the  charge  itself  and  the  cause  assigned  for  it.  I 
deny  that  the  East  has,  at  any  time,  shown  an 
illiberal  policy  towards  the  West.  I  pronounce 
the  whole  accusation  to  be  without  the  least  foun- 
dation in  any  facts  existing  now  or  at  any  previous 

1  Webster's  Works,  vol,  iii.  pp.  249,  294,  295. 


EASTEEN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   AVEST.  287 

time.  I  deny  it  in  the  general,  and  I  deny  each 
and  all  its  particulars.  I  deny  the  sum  total,  and 
I  deny  the  detail.  .  .  .  New  England  is  guiltless 
of  the  policy  of  retarding  AYestern  population,  and 
of  all  envy  and  jealousy  of  the  growth  of  the  new 
States." 

Against  these  round  periods  it  would  be  fitting, 
as  before  a  board  of  cool  referees,  that  such  men 
as  Clay  and  Benton  and  Linn,  speaking  from  their 
border  ground  and  out  of  their  experiences,  should 
file  in  their  facts.  The  ellipse,  enclosing  all  which 
is  pertinent  to  a  fair  judgment,  has  two  foci,  eastern 
and  western.  Of  course  McDuffie  is  extravagant 
in  remarks  made  on  the  National  Road  Bill,  in 
1825 :  "  I  believe  that  if  the  public  lands  had 
never  been  sold,  the  aggregate  amount  of  the 
national  wealth  would  have  been  greater  at  tliis 
moment.  Our  population,  if  concentrated  in  the 
old  States,  and  not  ground  down  by  tariff,  would 
have  been  more  prosperous  and  wealthy."  This  is 
the  senator  who,  speaking  of  Oregon  as  a  farming 
country,  said,  "  I  would  not,  for  that  purpose,  give 
a  pinch  of  snuff  for  the  whole  territory." 

Some  years  after  his  defence  of  the  East,  Webster 
admitted  the  strong  opposition  of  the  East  to  the 
West,  which,  in  his  great  speech,  he  assumed  to 
disprove :  "  I  remember,  sir,  and  indeed  a  very 
short  memory  might  retain  the  recollection,  when 
the  first  appropriations  for  harbors  on  the  Great 

1  Webster's  "Works,  vol.  iii.  pp.  261,  289. 


288  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST. 

Lakes  were  carried  through  tliis  body,  not  without 
the  utmost  difficulty  and  against  the  most  deter- 
mined opposition.  ...  I  remember  when  Laive 
Ontario,  Lake  Erie,  and  Lake  Michigan  were 
likely  to  be  condemned  to  a  continuance  in  the 
state  in  which  nature  and  the  Indian  tribes  had 
left  them,  with  no  proof  upon  their  shores  of  the 
policy  of  a  civilized  state,  no  harbors  for  the  shel- 
ter of  a  hundred  vessels,  no  lighthouse  even  to 
point  out  to  the  inland  navigator  the  dangers  of 
his  course."  ^ 

No  one  question  has  so  drawn  the  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  East  and  the  West,  and 
continuously  through  decades  of  years,  and  with 
deep  sectional  warmth,  as  that  of  internal  improve- 
ments. Donaldson,  in  his  "  Public  Domain,"  1884, 
speaks  of  these  struggles  as  "  the  fierce  political 
battles  after  the  year  1803."  It  will  be  enough 
to  name  some  of  the  bills  over  which  the  provin- 
cial contests  were  waged  and  prolonged  from  1802 
till  the  "West  was  able  to  take  the  matter  into 
their  own  hands,  and  initiated  the  system  of  land- 
grants  for  railroads  by  passing  the  bill  for  the 
Illinois  Central,  Sept.  20,  1850.  There  were  the 
Cumberland  Eoad  Bill  and  the  Maysville,  with 
their  vetoes  by  Monroe  and  Jackson ;  and  con- 
tinuously, some  portion  of  the  National  Road, 
which  was  finally  opened  as  far  as  Indianapolis, 

1  Remarks  in  the  Senate  on  the  Louisville  Canal,  May  25, 
1836.     Works,  vol.  iv.  pp.  219-251. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  289 

A  quotation  here  from  the  St.  Louis  Directory 
of  1821,  the  first  of  that  city,  will  prove  an  item 
of  information  and  serve  as  a  milestone  of  prog- 
ress in  the  westward  movement  of  the  nation. 
The  assessed  valuation  of  this  backwoods  city 
then  was  $940,926,  and  its  taxes  for  that  year 
were  $3,763,  on  a  population  of  5,500.  The  town 
was  then  within  fortifications.  "  They  consist  of 
several  circular  stone  towers,  about  fifteen  feet  in 
height  and  twenty  in  diameter,  a  wooden  block- 
house, and  a  large  stone  bastion,"  then  used  as  a 
military  garden.  Eef erring  back  to  the  time  when 
they  killed  buffalo  on  Mill  Creek  and  around 
Choteau's  Pond,  now  the  heart  of  the  city  of 
three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people,  the 
author,  Mr.  Paxton,  says :  "  What  a  prodigious 
change  has  been  operated  !  "  The  Directory  pro- 
ceeds to  say :  "  The  roads  leading  from  St.  Louis 
are  very  good.  .  .  .  Two  stages  run  from  this 
town,  —  one  to  Edwardsville  and  the  other  to 
Franklin.  ...  It  is  expected  that  the  Great  Na- 
tional Turnpike,  leading  from  Washington,  will 
strike  this  place,  as  the  commissioners  for  tlie 
United  States  have  reported  in  favor  of  it.  .  .  . 
It  is  contemplated  at  some  future  day  to  open  a 
direct  intercourse  with  India,  by  the  Missouri  and 
Columbia  rivers." 

The  Straits  of  Anian,  it  will  be  noticed,  were 
yet  a  beautiful  'and  stimulating  delusion.     And 
the  wag  came  nearer  to  being  a  prophet  than  was 
19 


290  EASTERN  JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST. 

supposed,  when  he  caricatured  tlie  ambitions  of 
St.  Louis  by  thus  advertising  in  their  city  papers 
in  1815  a  new  town,  called  Neplusultra  :  "  The 
streets  were  laid  out  a  mile  in  width  ;  the  squares 
were  to  be  sections,  each  containing  six  hundred 
and  forty  acres.  The  Mall  was  a  vast  standing 
forest.  In  the  centre  of  this  modern  Babylon 
roads  were  to  cross  each  other  in  a  meridional 
line,  at  right  angles,  one  from  the  south  pole  to 
Symmes  hole  in  the  earth,  and  another  from 
Pekin  to  Jerusalem."  ^  When  this  National  lioad 
Bill  was  under  discussion  in  the  House,  in  1825, 
Mr.  Beecher  of  Ohio  said:  "Fifteen  million  dollars 
were  expended  annually,  and  what  proportion  of 
it  went  west  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains  ?  .  .  . 
The  entire  sum  (to  build  the  road)  would  not  be 
equal  to  what  was  expended  in  some  small  ports 
on  the  Atlantic  coast."  ^ 

There  was  the  Wabash  Improvement  Bill  and 
its  veto  by  Jackson,  and  the  Eiver,  Harbor,  and 
Improvement  Bill,  vetoed  by  Polk.  There  were, 
between  1824  and  1880,  twenty  concessions  of  pub- 
lic land  for  canal  purposes,  aggregating  4,424,073 
acres,  over  which  many  of  those  "  fierce  political 
battles  "  were  fought,  —  the  West  steadily  gaining 
for  the  next  issue. 

1  Flint's  Travels  in  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  pp.  187, 
188. 

2  Gales  and  Seaton's  Congressional  Debates,  vol.  i.  pp.  190, 
191. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST.  201 

We  have  already  seen  how  Congress  smiled  at 
the  visionary  scheme  to  have  a  horseback  mail 
once  in  two  weeks  over  the  Alleghanies  into  the 
West.  Mr.  Brown  was  told  that  such  mail  ac- 
commodations would  never  be  needed,  and  that 
the  obstacles  to  such  a  road  were  insuperable. 
It  appeared,  slowly,  that  the  obstacles  were  not 
in  the  Alleghanies,  but  in  Washington.  The 
struggles  of  the  West  for  their  national  roads 
were  constant  and  varied  through  multiplex  and 
intricate  and  formidable  opposition.  This  opposi- 
tion, principally  from  the  tide-water  East,  sprang 
from  various  causes ;  mainly  it  was  from  a  failure 
to  grasp  and  comprehend  the  West,  and  to  antici- 
pate its  future,  and  hence  indifference  to  its  de- 
velopment. There  were,  also,  vast  funded  moneys 
in  commerce  and  in  Eastern  lands,  which  would 
suffer  under  Western  growth.  There  were  added 
the  petty  ambitions  of  tlie  village  statesman,  to 
whom  his  county  and  the  country  were  almost 
synonymous,  and  who,  therefore,  picketed  and 
fingered  his  ancestral  garden  in  "  pent-up  Utica." 
But  slowly,  somewhat  imperceptibly  and  irresist- 
ibly, the  centre  of  national  power  moved  west- 
ward, and  still  going  west,  it  held  its  emigrating 
centre  in  1880,  as  has  been  already  stated,  on  the 
Kentucky  side  of  the  Ohio,  eight  miles  west  by 
south  from  the  heart  of  Cincinnati. 

We  have  not  had  many  men  built  on  the  plan 
of  the  breadth  of  our  continent,  who  could  easily 


'2'X2  EASTERN    JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST. 

turn  it  in  hand,  as  a  piece  of  property,  and  ex- 
amine its  Atlantic  and  Pacitic,  and  lake  and  gulf 
sides.  The  limitations  of  their  comprehension  com- 
pelled many  of  our  leading  men  to  be  provincial 
in  their  feelings  and  sectional  in  their  policies. 
Travel  to  the  interior  regions  was  not  much  in- 
dulged in  because  of  discomforts,  expense,  and  cost 
of  time,  on  account  of  the  magnificent  distances, 
A  trip  to  the  Ohio  in  tlie  first  quarter  of  the  cen- 
tury was  a  greater  undertaking  than  one  to  China 
to-day.  So  ignorance  of  the  West,  its  distance 
from  the  colonial  seaboard,  and  the  lack  of  pro- 
phetic foresight  by  the  East,  as  well  as  jealous 
anxieties  concerning  its  growth,  doomed  its  de- 
velopment by  congressional  aid  to  a  constant 
struggle,  till  the  balance  of  power  found  a  way 
over  the  Alleghanies  which  Congress  could  not 
find  for  a  semi-monthly  mail  on  horseback.  Even 
Webster,  one  of  the  first  to  entertain  a  continental 
policy,  came  up  but  slowly  to  the  eminence  of  a 
national  statesman.  It  was  as  late  as  1836,  when 
the  Louisville  Canal  Bill  was  under  discussion,  that 
he  made  that  noble  utterance :  "  For  one,  I  look 
to  the  magnitude  of  the  object,  and  not  to  its 
locality.  I  ask  not  whether  it  be  east  or  west 
of  the  mountains.  There  are  no  Alleghanies  in 
my  politics."  He  crossed  them  the  next  year  and 
spent  five  days,  in  June,  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
in  St.  Louis. 

Sketchimi  here  and  there  this  Eastern  neglect 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST,  293 

of  the  West  serves  to  introduce  a  case  boldly 
illustrative  and  somewhat  extreme.  The  illus- 
tration will  have  weight  in  the  fact  that  the  life 
of  the  person  covered  eighty-eight  years  of  the 
Eepublic,  closing  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  late 
war,  and  that  almost  his  entire  adult  life  was  pub- 
lic, bearing  state  and  national  and  civic  and  aca- 
demic honor,  while  he  sustained  well  a  name 
eminent  in  New  England  history.  Josiah  Quiucy 
served  one  year  in  the  Massachusetts  Senate, 
entered  Congress,  —  the  lower  House, —  in  1805, 
and  retired  in  1813,  and  was  for  sixteen  years  the 
president  of  Harvard  College.  The  publicity  of 
the  man  in  offices  so  high  and  filled  by  election, 
gives  prominence  and  weight  to  his  views  on 
national  questions,  some  of  the  cardinal  ones 
of  which,  his  son  and  biographer  says,  he  adhered 
to,  "  right  or  wrong,"  to  the  day  of  his  death. 

By  the  addition  of  Louisiana  to  the  public  do- 
main, Mr.  Quincy  maintained  that  the  Consti- 
tution was  violated  and  the  foundations  of  the 
Government  were  unsettled,  so  tliat  no  State 
formed  out  of  it  could  constitutionally  enter  the 
Union  or  become  an  equal  with  States  founded 
in  the  original  domain.^ 

On  the  15th  of  January,  1811,  and  by  a  vote 
of  seventy-seven  to  thirty-six,  Louisiana  was  ad- 
mitted as  a  State  into  the    Union.     On  the  day 

1  The  Life  of  Josiah  Quincy.  By  Edmund  Quincy.  1874. 
pp.  91,  97,  205. 


29-4  EASTEILX   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST. 

preceding,  Mr.  Quincy  spoke  against  the  admis- 
sion, and  in  very  strong  terms,  some  of  them 
remarkable  :  "  I  am  compelled  to  declare  it  as  my 
deliberate  opinion,  that  if  this  bill  passes,  the 
bonds  of  the  Union  are  virtually  dissolved ;  so 
that  the  States  which  compose  it  are  free  from 
their  moral  obligations,  and  that,  as  it  will  be  the 
right  of  all,  so  it  will  be  the  duty  of  some,  to  pre- 
pare definitely  for  a  separation,  amicably  if  they 
can,  violently  if  they  must."  ^ 

One  would  not  be  looking  for  the  doctrines  of 
secession  from  Massachusetts,  and  so  many  years 
in  advance  of  South  Carolina.  But  when  the  same 
doctrines  came  into  Congress  from  the  South,  in 
1830,  Massacliusetts  also  furnished  their  energetic 
denial  and  refutation. 

" '  But,'  says  the  gentleman  from  Tennessee,  Mr. 
Ehea,  '  these  people  have  been  seven  years  citi- 
zens of  the  United  States.'  I  deny  it,  sir.  As 
citizens  of  New  Orleans,  or  of  Louisiana,  they 
never  have  been,  and  by  the  mode  proposed  they 
never  will  be,  citizens  of  the  United  States.  .  .  . 
"Why,  sir,  I  have  already  heard  of  six  States  and 
some  say  there  will  be,  at  no  great  distance  of 
time,  more.  We  have  thirteen  now,  and  nine 
stately  Territories  in  vigorous  progress.  I  have 
also  heard  that  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  will  be  far 
to  the   east   of  the   centre   of  the   contemplated 

1  Life  of  Josiah  Quincy,  p.  206. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST,  295 

empire.  If  the  bill  is  passed,  the  principle  is  rec- 
ognized. All  the  rest  are  mere  questions  of  ex- 
pediency. It  is  impossible  such  a  power  could  be 
granted.  It  was  not  for  these  men  that  our  fathers 
fought,  it  was  not  for  them  this  Constitution  was 
adopted.  You  have  no  authority  to  throw  the 
rights  and  liberties  and  property  of  this  people 
into  hotch-pot  with  the  wild  men  on  the  Missouri, 
nor  with  the  mixed,  though  more  respectable,  race 
of  Anglo-Hispano  Americans,  who  bask  on  the 
sands  in  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  .  .  .  Do 
you  suppose  the  people  of  the  aSTorthern  and  Atlan- 
tic States  will,  or  ought,  to  look  on  w'ith  patience, 
and  see  representatives  and  senators  from  the  Eed 
Eiver  and  the  Missouri  pouring  themselves  upon 
this  and  the  other  floor,  managing  the  concerns  of 
a  seaboard  one  thousand  and  five  hundred  miles  at 
least  from  their  residences,  and  having  a  prepon- 
derance in  councils  into  which,  constitutionally, 
they  could  never  have  been  admitted.  .  .  .  Take 
care,  in  your  haste  after  effectual  dominion,  not  to 
overload  the  scale  by  heaping  it  with  these  new 
acquisitions.  .  .  .  Already  tiie  old  States  sink  in 
the  estimation  of  members,  when  brought  into 
comparison  with  these  new  countries.  .  .  .  "We 
have  been  asked :  '  What  are  some  of  the  small 
States  compared  with  the  IMississippi  territory  ? ' 
The  gentleman  from  that  territory,  Mr.  Poindex- 
ter,  spoke  the  other  day  of  the  Mississippi  as  of 
'  a  high  road  between.'     Good  heavens  !  between 


296  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF  THE   WEST. 

what,  Mr.  Speaker  ?  '  Why,  tlie  Eastern  and  the 
"Western  States.'  So  that  all  the  northwestern 
Territories,  all  the  countries  once  the  extreme  west- 
ern boundary  of  the  Union,  are  hereafter  to  he 
denominated  Eastern  States.'  [How  accurately, 
how  unwillingly  and  unintentionally  correct !  For 
a  north  and  south  halving-line  of  the  Union  of 
that  day,  including  the  "  unconstitutional "  Louis- 
iana, would  place  the  most  of  Minnesota  and  Iowa 
and  all  of  Missouri  and  Arkansas  and  Louisiana, 
and  sections  of  Kansas,  the  Indian  Territory,  and 
Texas,  within  the  Eastern  States.]  .  .  .  The  exten- 
sion of  their  principles  to  the  States  contemplated 
beyond  the  Mississippi,  cannot,  will  not,  and  ought 
not  to  be  borne.  .  .  .  The  bill,  if  it  passes,  is  a 
death-blow  to  the  Constitution."^ 

Of  this  speech  Mr.  Hildreth  says :  "  It  was  the 
first  announcement  on  the  floor  of  Congress  of  the 
doctrines  of  secession."  ^  Two  years  afterward  Mr. 
Quincy  returned  to  private  life,  and  in  April,  1813, 
gave  the  annual  address  before  the  Washington 
Benevolent  Society  of  Boston.  It  is  reported  to 
have  been  received  with  great  favor,  and  passages 
from  it  may  therefore  be  taken  while  considering 
the  East  and  the  West  in  their  relations  to  each 
other.  Especially  may  this  be  done  in  view  of  the 
fact  that,  the  same  year,  the  Massachusetts  legis- 

1  Life  of  Josiah  Quincy,  pp.  206-211. 

2  History  of  the  United  States,  voL  iii.  p.  226. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  297 

lature  passed  a  resolution  instructing  its  represen- 
tatives in  Congress  to  ask  for  the  repeal  of  the 
action  which  admitted  Louisiana  as  a  State  into 
the  Union.     Mr.  Quincy  says,  in  this  address  :  — 

"  The  new  States  govern  the  old,  the  unsettled 
the  settled;  the  inHueuces  of  emigrants  prevail 
over  those  of  the  ancient  natives ;  a  black  popula- 
tion overbalances  the  white;  from  woods  and  lakes 
and  desert  wilderness  legislators  issue,  controlling 
the  destinies  of  a  seaboard  people,  paralyzing  all 
their  interests  and  darkening  all  their  prospects. 
...  A  whirlwind  from  the  west  is  passing  over 
those  massy  pillars  of  our  greatness,  and  they  are 
almost  prostrate.  Our  commerce,  navigation,  and 
fisheries  are  gone.  .  .  .  Louisiana  is  spoken  of  as 
being  an  integral  part  of  the  nation,  with  as  much 
indifference  as  though  it  had  been  admitted  by  an 
unquestionable  authority.  We  hear  of  the  inten- 
tion of  cutting  it  up  into  new  States,  with  as  much 
unconcern  as  though  we  had  no  interest  in  the 
matter.  .  .  .  That  proportion  of  power  which  they 
[the  New  England  States]  possessed  at  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  is  gone.  This  proportion,  thus 
diminished,  is  every  day  diminishing  still  further, 
in  a  geometrical  ratio.  .  .  .  Out  from  your  coun- 
cils, out  from  your  confidence,  be  every  man  who 
will  not  maintain  the  old  foundations  of  New  Eng- 
land prosperity.  Follow  no  longer  the  doctrines 
and   commandments   from   the  mountains.     Con- 


298  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST. 

tend  earnestly  fur  the  conimerciiil  faith  delivered 
by  your  fathers,  and  let  him  who  will  not  stand  up 
for.it  be  to  you  worse  than  an  infidel."  ^ 

Of  course  we  pardon  much  to  the  habitat  of  the 
man  whose  home  commanded  a  full  view  of  Boston 
Harbor,  and  from  whose  windows  every  ship  enter- 
ing and  leaving  tliat  port  could  be  seen.  His  ideas 
of  national  prosperity  were  inseparable  from  tide- 
water. Hence  his  extreme  Eastern  and  commer- 
cial notions  drove  him  rashly  to  secession  from 
agricultural  and  fresh-water  growth  in  the  deep 
interior.  The  Republican  chick  must  not  lose 
sight  of  its  egg-shell.  We  also  pardon  much  to 
the  gloomy  times  when  the  War  of  1812,  with  its 
embargo,  and  with  shipping  and  wharves  decaying 
together,  cast  an  eclipse  over  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 
Yet  it  would  seem  that  an  ardent  man,  educated 
and  in  the  prime  of  forty-one  years,  should  have 
had  some  of  the  instincts  of  a  prophet  and  been 
open  to  the  inspiration  of  a  boundless  continent. 
But  we  remember  that  a  prince  among  prophets 
wrote  also  a  "  Book  of  Lamentation."  The  surprise 
is  lessened  by  the  fact  that,  even  yet,  many  men, 
very  able  in  their  sphere,  fail  to  appreciate  our  mag- 
nificent interior  development.  They  were  born 
among  ships,  and  when  they  travel  it  is  in  ships, 
and  so  their  education  is  in  local  rather  than  in 
national  interests  and  pursuits.     They  are  able  up 

1  Life  of  Josiah  Quincy,  pp.  309,  316. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST,  299 

to  their  limits,  but  lack  au  apprehension  and  an 
appreciation.  They  have  "  Alleghanies  in  their 
politics." 

It  is  with  deep  regret  for  the  entire  dominion 
of  our  flag  that  one  holding  such  view,  and  in  so 
pronounced  a  way,  had  the  guiding  and  moulding 
for  sixteen  years  of  the  American  sentiment  of  so 
many  young  men  coming  prominently  to  the  front 
in  national  affairs.  The  inevitable  and,  indeed, 
the  accomplished  from  1803  downward,  was  de- 
clined and  disowned,  and  all  of  the  Union  west  of 
the  Mississippi  was  put  under  ban  as  an  unconsti- 
tutional and  enforced  partner  in  the  American 
Union.  This  was  a  rejection,  so  far  as  it  had 
power,  of  more  territory  than  the  fathers  gained  in 
the  Eevolution  ;  and  as  that  immense  valley,  one 
half  larger  than  the  old  Eoman  empire,  is  indi- 
visible in  interests  and  sympathies,  the  sense  of 
alienation  thus  begotten  extended  from  the  Alle- 
ghanies to  the  Pacific.  The  indifference  to  its  de- 
velopment and  the  ignorance  of  its  geography  and 
natural  resources  and  prophetic  growths,  thus  en- 
gendered in  the  East,  are  felt  to  this  day.  Scholars 
have  taken  their  diplomas  with  a  much  better 
knowledge  of  Europe  than  of  the  United  States, 
and  are  more  at  home  in  the  exhumed  towns  and 
cities  of  classic  lands  than  in  the  land  of  their  birth 
and  life  work.  Thalaba,  among  the  ruins  of  Baby- 
lon, could  not  have  been  a  more  bewildered  and 
amazed  traveller  than  would  be  many  Eastern  grad- 


300  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF  THE   WEST. 

iiate3  ill  any  one  of  a  dozen  living  cities,  ranging 
from  a  score  of  thousand  inhabitants  to  the  size 
of  Boston,  in  that  same  alienated  territory.  As  a 
sectional  sentiment,  it  was  historically  and  pro- 
phetically correct  to  say  "  the  old  States  sink," 
while  it  is  left  for  any  one  to  say  to-day  that  the 
United  States,  as  a  nation,  stand  abreast  of  the  first 
in  the  world  ;  or,  as  the  Eiiglisli  Premier  puts  it: 
"  I  suppose  that  the  very  next  census,  in  the  year 
1880,  will  exhibit  her  to  the  world  as  certainly  the 
wealthiest  of  all  the  nations."  And  the  fact  proved 
that  Gladstone  was  correct,  when  the  nations  sub- 
mitted their  census  tables  for  1880. 

The  frequent  reference  to  salt-water  commerce, 
not  yet  obsolete,  lacks  the  national  in  scope  and 
interest,  and  does  not  correspond  with  the  inter- 
national character  of  the  United  States.  Nine  hun- 
dred steamers  chafing  the  levee  at  different  times, 
and  forty  at  once,  at  St.  Louis,  gave  me  different 
feelings.  The  influence  of  immigrants  over  the 
"  ancient  nation  "  was  bewailed  then  as  now,  but 
were  not  the  fathers  "  immigrants  "  ?  Complaint 
was  filed  that  the  West  would  come  east  fifteen 
hundred  miles  to  manage  a  thousand  miles  of  At- 
lantic seaboard  ;  yet  what  if  the  East  now  propose 
to  go  three  and  four  thousand  miles  westward  to 
manage  six  thousand  five  hundred  miles  of  Pacific 
seaboard  ?  The  lament  arose,  nor  has  it  wholly 
died  away,  that  the  proportional  power  in  each  of 
the  original  thirteen  States  was  diminished  by  the 


EASTERN    JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  301 

addition  of  new  States.  This  is  not  kindly  or  gen- 
erous or  politic.  The  second  son  of  Jacob  lessened 
relatively  the  power  of  the  first,  but  the  twelve 
made  a  splendid  family.  The  lament  lacks  the 
national  air  of  "  The  Star-Spangled  Banner."  The 
"  whirlwind  from  the  West,"  so  bemoaned,  has 
become  the  most  magnificent  and  well-regulated 
trade-wind  of  the  world. 

It  is  among  the  surprises,  in  the  unfolding  of 
our  early  history,  to  see  with  what  struggle  of 
study  among  statesmen,  and  in  what  blindness 
and  often  against  what  judicial  opposition,  the 
West  has  gained  recognition  as  a  part  of  the  Amer- 
ican unit,  and  the  privileges  and  riglits  common 
to  those  who  are  born  free  and  equal.  One 
would  not  suppose  that  it  would  require  sev- 
enty years  for  a  United  States  jurisdiction  to  emi- 
grate from  tide-water  to  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
Mississippi  Eiver;  yet  so  long,  and  by  painful  stages 
and  often  with  retreats  followed  by  heroic  advances, 
was  the  admiralty  jurisdiction  in  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  in  going  from  salt 
water  westward  to  fresh  water ;  and  so  much  has 
it  cost  the  western  part  and  now  grand  majority 
of  the  nation  to  conquer  acknowledgment  and 
place  and  equality  before  our  Supreme  bench  and 
bar.     The  fact  may  be  stated  on  this  wise. 

In  the  organization  of  our  Government  under  the 
Constitution,  English  law  became  largely  pattern 
and  substance  for  American  law,  and  in  this  way 


302  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST. 

tlie  admiralty  court  was  established  in  the  young 
republic.  This  court  had  jurisdiction  over  mari- 
time causes,  both  civil  and  criminal.  Under  the 
English  scope  of  this  court  a  maritime  cause  must 
arise  on  the  open  seas,  not  only  off  shore  but  be- 
yond the  mouths  of  rivers  and  creeks,  and  out  on 
the  open  ocean.  In  1789  Congress  divided  tlie 
country  into  districts,  in  each  of  which  it  estab- 
lished a  court,  and  into  these,  by  the  Constitution 
and  acts  of  Congress,  came  "all  civil  causes  of 
admiralty  and  maritime  jurisdiction."^ 

Following  now  the  English  pattern,  where  terri- 
tory was  so  insular,  and  water  commerce  so  almost 
wholly  marine,  and  attempting  to  exercise  tlie  ad- 
miralty jurisdiction  on  a  vast  continent,  and  where 
fresh-water  commerce  was  almost  unlimited,  grave 
difficulties  arose.  It  will  be  considered  that  at 
that  time  American  legislators  and  the  bar  and  the 
bench  had  mainly  English  law  to  study,  and  many 
of  the  leaders  had  studied  it  in  English  schools. 
The  transfer  and  adaptation,  therefore,  of  the  ad- 
miralty jurisdiction  of  Great  Britain  to  a  continent, 
and  to  a  new  and  growing  nation,  were  attended 
with  obstacles  of  moment. 

It  was  a  long  struggle  among  jurists  to  limit 
and  define  the  locality  where  a  maritime  case  could 
arise  for  admiralty  jurisdiction.  The  English  law 
and  rulings  of  Parliament  fixed  this  on  tlie  high 
seas.     In  1825  our  Supreme  Court  had  so  far  out- 

1  Judiciary  Act  of  1789. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  303 

grown  the  English  limits  as  to  hold  that  where- 
ever  ocean-tides  ebbed  and  flowed,  up  and  down 
bays  and  straits,  creeks  and  rivers,  with  water 
enough  to  take  freight  from  and  to  the  ocean,  there 
admiralty  jurisdiction  would  hold.  This  was  a 
great  departure  from  English  law,  and  a  great  move- 
ment toward  providing  our  river  waters  with 
maritime  courts.  The  law  was  thus  brought  to  the 
shore  of  the  continent  in  its  movement  toward 
the  west.  The  presence  of  tidal  effect  in  a  body 
of  water,  be  it  a  bay,  river,  or  water-way  of  any 
kind,  made  it  possible  for  a  case  for  admiralty  juris- 
diction. This  was  reaffirmed  in  the  De  Soto  case 
in  1847  of  a  steamboat  collision  on  the  Missis- 
sippi above  New  Orleans,  yet  not  above  tidal  influ- 
ences. This  reaffirmation  was  made  at  great  cost 
of  learning  and  study  and  argument. 

But  as  yet  all  river  and  lake  commerce  in  the 
West,  beyond  a  marine  tide,  was  beyond  the  reach 
and  advantages  of  admiralty  jurisdiction.  The  re- 
cognition of  the  growing,  commercial,  and  opulent 
West,  and  the  progress  of  laws  into  it  to  protect 
its  fresh-water  trade  in  the  same  way  and  to  the 
same  extent  that  salt-water  trade  was  protected, 
was  exceedingly  slow.  What  saltness  had  to  do 
with  jurists  and  laws  it  is  hard  to  divine. 

After  these  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and 
in  1845,  Congress  passed  "  an  act  extending  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  district  courts  to  certain  cases 
upon  the  lakes  and  navigable  waters  connecting 


304  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST. 

the  sarae."^  The  cases  were  to  be  treated  tlie  same 
as  if  they  were  on  the  high  seas  or  on  the  tide- 
waters. This  was  an  immense  gain  for  our  inland 
and  lake  trade ;  and  in  a  case  arising  under  it  in 
1851  the  court  decided  that  the  "admiralty  and 
marine  jurisdiction"  given  by  the  Constitution  ex- 
tends to  our  great  interior  seas,  and  is  not  limited 
Ity  tide-water.  It  was  not,  therefore,  till  1851  that 
the  navigable  fresh  water  of  the  West  came  into 
an  equality  with  tlie  salt  water  of  the  East  in  the 
interests  of  the  commerce  of  the  Union. 

And  still  Western  commerce  was  kept  under 
intimidation.  It  was  an  agitated  question  whether 
admiralty  jurisdiction  extended  also  over  rivers 
not  connecting  the  Great  Lakes  ;  and  whether  it 
could  cover  cases  arising  where  the  navigation  was 
not  "  between  ports  and  places  in  different  States 
and  Territories,"  according  to  the  words  of  the  Con- 
gressional Act  of  1845,  but  between  ports  within 
the  same  State,  and  unconnected  with  foreign  com- 
merce. On  these  points  finally  Mr.  Justice  Clif- 
ford eased  the  West,  by  ruling  that  neither  the 
admixture  of  foreign  commerce  nor  tide-water  nor 
State  lines  liuiit  admiralty  jurisdiction.  The  navi- 
gation furnishing  a  case  might  be  wholly  within 
one  State,  as  in  a  collision  on  the  Alabama,  whose 
navigable  waters  are  wholly  within  that  State,  and 
where  the  collision  occurred  two  hundred  miles 
above  tide-water.     In  this  case  Mr.  Justice  Clifford 

1  5  U.  S.  Laws,  726. 


EASTERN  JEALOUSY   OF  THE   WEST.  305 

went  very  far  to  place  the  West  on  an  equality  with 
the  East  in  the  rights  of  her  commerce  before  the 
courts,  where  he  ruled  that  so  far  as  locality  is  con- 
cerned, admiralty  jurisdiction  is  co-extensive  with 
the  navigability  of  an  American  river. 

Other  justices,  as  McLane,  Nelson,  and  Daniel, 
however,  still  divided  the  court  by  insisting  on 
tide-water  limits  and  foreign  or  interstate  com- 
merce, as  necessary  to  the  founding  of  a  case  in 
admiralty  jurisdiction ;  and  it  was  not  till  1868, 
in  the  case  of  the  "  Belfast,"  that  the  ruling  of  Mr. 
Justice  Cliftbrd  superseded  all  previous  adverse 
decisions,  and  placed  the  inland  country  of  the 
Union,  with  all  its  lake  and  river  commerce,  on 
an  equality  with  the  tide-water  sections  before 
the  courts  of  the  nation. 

In  this  protracted  struggle  of  seventy  years  to 
assimilate  the  new  West  to  the  old  East  in  a 
common  judicial  system,  and  to  ignore  the  salt- 
ness  or  the  freshness  of  water  in  the  one  fact  that 
it  could  float  American  commerce,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  use  a  passage  from  Webster,  as  a  side  light 
cast  on  the  scene  :  "  Whoever  would  do  his  duty 
and  his  whole  duty  in  the  councils  of  this  Govern- 
ment must  look  upon  the  country  as  it  is,  in  its 
whole  length  and  breadth.  He  must  comprehend 
it  in  its  vast  extent,  its  novel  character,  its  sudden 
development,  its  amazing  progress,  confounding  all 
calculations,  and  almost  overwhelming  the  imagi- 
nation. .  .  .  With  us,  at  least  in  this  part  of  the 
20 


306  EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE    WEST. 

country,  iicavigatioii  IVom  the  seas  docs  not  stop 
where  the  tide  stops.  Our  ports  and  harbors  are 
not  at  the  mouths  of  rivers  only,  or  at  the  head 
of  the  tides  of  the  sea.  Hundretls  of  miles,  nay, 
thousands  of  miles  beyond  the  point  where  the 
tides  of  the  ocean  are  felt,  deep  waters  spread  out, 
and  capacious  harbors  open  themselves  to  the 
reception  of  a  vast  and  increasing  navigation." 

It  was  in  183(5  when  Webster  made  these 
remarks  on  the  Louisville  Canal  Bill  before  the 
Senate.  It  was  in  the  exercise  of  much  legal 
study  and  argument,  eleven  years  later,  that  the 
Supreme  Court  reaffirmed  the  point  beyond  fur- 
ther question,  that  admiralty  law  could  go  up  a 
river  as  far  as  the  tide  goes.  So  was  this  stately 
progress  of  the  nation's  will  led  off  by  a  conti- 
nental statesman  into  new  lands  and  commercial 
openings,  to  be  followed  up  and  affirmed  by  our 
most  conservative  and  authoritative  tribunal.  The 
final  and  total  victory  for  the  West  came  in  1868, 
when  the  full  advantages  of  admiralty  jurisdiction 
were  extended  over  all  American  waters  which 
were  deep  enough  to  float  articles  of  trade.^ 

This  tardy,  reluctant,  and  almost  protesting 
adjustment  of  the  colonial  and  Atlantic  States 
system  to  the  new  and  magnificent  interior  was 

1  Wallace  Reports,  vol.  vii.  pp.  288,  639,  640  ;  vol.  viii. 
pp.  20,  25  ;  vol.  x.  p.  563  ;  vol.  xi.  pp.  24,  26  ;  vol.  xv.  p. 
384  ;  vol.  xvi.  p.  531  ;  vol.  xxi.  pp.  245,  286  ;  vol.  xviii.  p. 
304.     American  Law  Review,  vol.  v. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE    WEST.  307 

not  surprising.  The  young  Eepublic  had  no  right 
to  expect  any  such  growth  as  followed  its  founda- 
tion. The  Old  World,  from  which  only  the  fathers 
could  reason,  furnished  no  precedent  or  warrant, 
and  there  is  no  probability  that  it  ever  will,  of  any 
such  marvellous  development.  The  East  was  as  a 
young  professional  man  fresh  from  the  schools  of 
the  Old  World  and  slow  to  venture  beyond  the 
note-books  of  the  lecture-room.  Our  new  popu- 
lation and  institutions  and  wealth,  before  they 
passed  the  watershed  of  the  great  valley,  suffered 
from  this  colonial  and  parental  timidity.  They 
who  comfortably  held  the  old  homesteads  could 
not  put  on  the  daring  and  originality  of  the  more 
energetic  and  enterprising,  who  took  the  ox-team 
and  pack-horse  and  disappeared  on  the  Western 
trail,  where  the  post-office  addresses  of  their  chil- 
dren were  soon  to  be  in  cities  of  ten,  seventy, 
and  a  hundred  thousand  people.  As  is  apt  to  be 
the  case  in  the  family,  the  young  West  grew  in 
years  and  experience  faster  than  the  parent  East 
grew  in  the  knowledge  of  it.  Adaptation  by  the 
home  government  did  not  keep  pace  with  "  the 
sudden  development,  the  amazing  progress,"  which 
demanded  it ;  and  the  civic  oak  planted  by  the 
fathers  in  the  rock  and  ice  of  the  East  did  not 
recognize  promptly  and  take  on  gracefully  the 
annular  growths  which  the  deep  soil  of  the  West 
forced  on  it  when  it  was  planted  beyond  the 
Alleghanies.     The  fathers  were  slow  and  resistant 


308  EASTERN    JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST. 

in  conceding  the  fact  that  fresh  water  might  need 
lightliousos  wlierc  cities  to-day  of  one  or  two 
hundred  thousand  make  ports  for  the  commerce 
of  the  Lakes,  and  where  Chicago  opens  a  harhor 
for  a  popuhition  nearly  double  that  of  Boston. 

The  same  feelings  of  the  East  toward  the  West 
were  developed  in  the  struggles  to  build  national 
and  military  roads  into  the  new  country.  A 
chapter  on  this  topic  would  be  interesting  and 
instructive  in  unfolding  our  general  theme,  but  it 
is  not  needful.  The  apathy  and  neglect  shown 
toward  the  nation  of  the  future  have  been  suffi- 
ciently illustrated. 

The  causes  are  not  obscure.  The  magnificent 
"West  was  totally  beyond  reasonable  expectation 
or  even  imagination.  Many  of  the  statesmen- 
prophets,  whose  predictions  we  have  embodied  in 
our  chapter  on  The  Empire  of  the  Future,  had 
not  then  spoken ;  some  of  them  were  not  born. 
Moreover,  and  more  to  the  point,  many  formerly, 
as  now,  were  more  gifted  for  public  service  in 
memories  and  precedents  than  in  anticipation. 

The  structure  of  a  new  nation  is  an  experience 
so  strange  that  the  nation  itself  does  not  seem  to 
catch  up  with  the  fact,  and  it  moves  on  a  little 
awkwardly,  as  a  lad  growing  fast  toward  manhood 
does  not  become  readily  and  easily  familiar  with 
his  new  years  and  added  avoirdupois.  The  dis- 
covery has  come  dreamily  to  some  that  the  West 
is  a  part  of  us  and  somewhat  ponderous. 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  309 

The  feeliniT  has  been  as  constant  as  the  orowtli 
of  the  nation  into  wild  land,  that  the  increase  on 
the  border  was  speculative  and  forced  and  over- 
done, and  would  be  only  temporary,  with  disas- 
trous reaction.  Yet  the  growtli  and  the  foreboding 
have  moved  off  together,  and  each  year  has  seen 
its  new  belt  of  settlements,  and  in  the  East  a  new 
set  of  prophets  of  evil.  Since  my  border  home 
was  in  Missouri  in  1840  I  have  seen  eight  States 
and  eight  Territories  added  to  the  census  list,  each 
to  the  surprise  of  the  Atlantic  slope,  untravelled 
and  unstudied  in  the  United  States  of  America 
beyond  the  Mississippi.  And,  except  in  new 
civil  divisions  with  new  names,  there  is  every 
probability  that  this  enlargement  of  the  nation, 
with  the  accompanying  surprise  and  scepticism 
of  the  colonial  section,  will  run  for  a  century  yet. 
Fortunately,  in  its  immense  preponderance  of 
growth  tlie  new  country  some  time  since  came 
into  the  mastery  of  its  own  destiny  in  civil  af- 
fairs. As  we  were  once  hunting  land  in  the  great 
prairies  of  northwestern  Iowa  with  a  national 
man,  and  scholarly  in  statesmanship,  he  remarked  : 
"  We  would  move  the  capital  over  the  Mississippi, 
out  into  the  nation,  but  that  it  would  cost  two 
or  three  hundred  millions,  and  now  our  war  debt 
is  heavy.  We  can  do  it  any  time."  The  remark 
was  easy,  and  quite  in  keeping  with  our  vastness 
of  vision  on  those  high  prairies. 

In  the  times  now  sketched  it  was  a  policy  of  the 


310  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST. 

North  and  East  to  admit  to  councils  and  confidence 
and  honors  only  those  who  would  sacrifice  new 
growths  in  the  West  to  old  foundations  in  the  East; 
but  that  was  when  Hercules  was  in  his  cradle. 
The  scales  of  patronage  and  power  and  honors, 
however,  turned  slowly  but  permanently  westward, 
and  a  singular  reverse,  typical  of  many,  was  wit- 
nessed in  a  convention  at  Cincinnati  for  the  nomi- 
nation of  president  and  vice-president.  A  name 
much  honored  in  connection  with  the  highest  gifts 
of  the  people  was  offered  fur  the  vice-presidency. 
When  it  was  stated,  on  inquiry,  that  he  had  never 
visited  the  West,  the  name  was  dropped  instantly 
and  finally,  thus  illustrating,  says  a  member  of  the 
convention,  and  my  correspondent,  "  a  growing  sen- 
timent among  our  people  that  if  a  man  aimed  at 
high  political  office,  where  the  welfare  and  perhaps 
destiny  of  the  country  were  to  be  placed  in  his 
keeping,  he  must  have  manifested  enough  interest 
in  the  country  and  its  people  to  have  at  least  vis- 
ited the  various  sections,  rather  than  spend  his 
leisure  time  and  money  in  extended  visits  and  en- 
joyments of  other  countries." 

"  When  they  gain  strength,  which  will  be  sooner 
than  most  people  conceive,"  said  Washington, 
speaking  of  the  West.  In  view  of  what  he  saw 
and  foresaw,  he  favored  an  exploration  and  study 
of  the  new  country,  development  of  it,  and  a  sym- 
pathetic, affiliated  cultivation  of  the  mutual  rela- 
tions between  the  old  and  the  new.     The  advice 


EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST.  311 

of  tlie  eminent  statesman  as  well  as  soldier  was 
not  well  heeded  and  followed,  perhaps  because  it 
was  too  general  or  universal.  For  we  recall  what 
Webster  said  of  him  at  the  centennial  of  his  birth- 
day :  "  Washington  stood  not  only  at  the  com- 
mencement of  a  new  era,  but  at  the  head  of  a  new 
world." 

It  is  evident  to  all  that  the  nation  is  moving 
west  with  the  massiveness  and  grandeur  of  empire. 
In  1811  it  was  New  England  which  said  deplor- 
ingly,  "  The  old  States  sink."  Very  true ;  and  the 
region  beyond  the  Mississippi,  then  treated  as  an 
alien,  now  puts  fifty-two  representatives  into  Con- 
gress, against  the  twenty-six  from  the  section  which 
called  her  alien.  The  depression  of  the  old  thir- 
teen is  only  relative  ;  and  what  continental  Amer- 
ican does  not  foi'get  provincial  comparisons  in 
national  exaltation !  It  was  the  grand  eminence 
and  pivot  of  success  in  the  dubious  struggle  for  the 
union  of  the  colonies,  when  Patrick  Henry  rose  to 
the  exigency  of  the  occasion  by  saying,  "  The  dis- 
tinctions between  Virginians,  Pennsylvanians,  New 
Yorkers,  and  New  Englanders  are  no  more.  I  am 
not  a  Virginian,  but  an  American,"  ^ 

The  time  for  comparisons  and  rivalries  and  jeal- 
ousies is  gone  by.  With  her  acres  and  natural 
resources,  and  votes  and  wealth,  and  wonderful  in- 
crease in  population,  and  with  pre-eminently  her 

1  Frotliingham's  Rise  of  the  Republic  of  the  United  States, 
p.  400. 


312  EASTERN   JEALOUSY   OF   THE   WEST. 

young  ouei'gy,  ilie  West  can  take  care  of  herself. 
Fortunate  is  the  aspirant  for  national  honors  who 
is  born  west  of  the  Alleghanies  ;  and  if  he  has  failed 
of  this  he  is  wise  in  recovering  from  the  political 
misfortune  by  extensive  travel  at  home. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  benevolent  wealth, 
moving  off  voluntarily  and  divinely,  like  the  gifts 
of  God,  has  not  kept  the  educating  and  Christian- 
izinff  forces  abreast  of  the  financial  and  civil,  in 
their  westward  progress.  As  a  general  thing,  the 
hand-to-hand  collections  for  such  purposes  have 
gone  to  new  fields,  while  the  princely  gifts  and  the 
legacies  have  stopped  in  old  fields  near  home,  to 
enrich  or  embellish  institutions  already  strong,  and 
to  lay  more  foundations,  where  they  already  are 
close  neighbors  to  each  other.  If  educating  and 
Christianizing  funds  had  been  invested  with  the 
forethought  which  determines  a  good  financial  in- 
vestment, —  where  the  greatest  possible  income  is 
sure,  —  more  money,  in  benevolent  channels,  would 
have  gone  over  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Missis- 
sippi, It  would  not  be  difficult  to  satisfy  a  board 
of  Wall  Street  and  State  Street  men,  whether  be- 
nevolent moneys  should  be  invested  in  the  East  or 
in  the  West,  for  the  highest  dividends,  on  long  time. 
Other  things  being  equal,  investments  grow  in  pro- 
portion to  the  growth  of  population  in  the  same 
place.  Our  last  national  census  showed  for  the 
preceding  decade  an  increase  of  eighteen  per  cent 
in  the  population  of  New  England,  New  York, 


EA.STERN   JEALOUSY    OF   THE   WEST.  313 

New  Jersey,  aud  Peuiisylvania  —  nine  States  —  and 
an  increase  of  thirty-four  per  cent  in  the  nortli- 
western  —  fourteen  States  —  and  of  forty-eight  per 
cent  in  the  seven  Pacific  States.  The  Western  in- 
crease is  about  double  the  Eastern,  and  the  greater, 
the  farther  we  go  back  in  the  decades.  For  results, 
a  gift  of  ten  thousand  dollars  for  the  West  is  equal 
to  a  gift  of  one  hundred  thousand  for  the  East,  so 
extensive  and  open  and  prolific  are  those  new  and 
unoccupied  fields.  Humboldt  informs  us  that  a 
follower  of  Cortez  first  sowed  wheat  in  America. 
He  had  but  three  kernels  to  begin  with,  which  he 
had  found  in  their  supply  of  rice,  but  he  planted  it 
in  the  right  place.  The  crop  or  "dividends"  iu 
1880  were  459,483,137  bushels. 


314        THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST. 

"  TF  there  were  to  be  no  railroads,  it  was,  on  the 
JL  whole,  rather  an  impertinence  in  Columbus 
to  discover  America."  The  point  is  well  taken  by 
Gail  Hamilton,  The  tide  margins  of  the  conti- 
nent could  provide  for  a  belt  of  civilized  homes, 
which  navigation  could  encourage  and  utilize  for 
the  rest  of  the  world,  and  steamers  could  do  simi- 
lar service  along  the  banks  of  large  rivers.  All 
this,  however,  when  best  done,  would  leave  the 
New  World  neglected  in  primitive  nature.  It 
might  do  for  insular  England,  so  threatened  by 
salt  water,  but  would  not  for  Dakota,  three  times 
as  large,  and  two  thousand  miles  from  the  Atlantic 
Ocean. 

In  1840  I  had  occasion  to  traverse  somewhat 
the  almost  unbroken  prairie  country  stretching 
away,  ocean-like,  from  Chicago  to  Cairo.  To  the 
lone  traveller  in  the  saddle,  with  scant  roads  to 
guide  or  fences  to  check  one,  and  a  point  of  timber 
here  and  there,  like  a  headland  at  sea,  it  was  mostly 
ccelum  undiquc  et  undique  campus.  The  lonesome 
farms  furnished  magnificent  livin2;s  in  "rains  and 


THE   RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST.        315 

meats  and  vegetables,  almost  miraculous  in  the 
eyes  of  the  immigrant  from  New  England,  where 
the  very  sure  annual  staples  are  rock  and  ice.  Yet 
what  was  to  be  done  with  the  "  twelve  baskets 
full  of  fragments"  in  Illinois?  My  friend  in 
Sangamon  County  was  feeding  unthreshed  wheat 
from  the  stack  to  his  cattle  and  swine,  rather  than 
to  thresh  and  haul  it  fifteen  miles,  and  get  but 
twenty-five  cents  a  bushel  for  it :  four  years  later 
it  could  command  only  that  in  Chicago.  The 
lands  loaded  and  drugged  the  market  at  a  dollar 
and  a  quarter  an  acre ;  farm  wages  were  ten  to 
thirteen  dollars  per  month,  and  board.  Surplus 
products  were  exchanged — as  oats,  twelve  cents  a 
bushel ;  corn,  fifteen  ;  beef  and  pork,  one  and  a  half 
to  two  and  a  half  cents  a  pound  —  for  store  goods, 
and  these  were  taken,  in  exchange,  at  about  double 
their  prices  in  the  East.  On  the  Iowa  shore  of 
the  Mississippi,  in  1841-43,  we  found  a  belt  of 
settlements  inland  for  perhaps  fifteen  miles,  log 
and  some  board  cabins  and  houses,  with  the  staples 
of  life  easy  and  abundant,  and  prices  somewhat 
better  than  in  the  Illinois  interior.  The  Indian 
and  the  buffalo  had  the  prices  of  land  and  of  food 
supplies  quite  their  own  way  throughout  the  most 
of  the  Territory,  and  continued  to  do  so  till  they 
heard  the  locomotive  over  the  river  eastward. 
There  lies  before  me  the  first  map  of  Iowa  ever 
published  — 1845.  It  shows  thirty-one  counties 
—  there  are  now  ninetv-nine  —  clusterino;  on  the 


31G        THE   RAILWAY   SYSTEM   OF   THE   WEST. 

Mississippi  between  the  Des  Moines  and  tlie  lati- 
tude of  Prairie  du  Chien.  About  eighty  towns 
are  located  on  this  map,  —  Iowa  now  has  fifteen 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  post-offices,  —  and  the 
most  of  them  within  a  day's  ride  of  the  river. 
Nine  of  the  counties  do  not  show  one  town.  The 
State  embraces  about  fifty-six  thousand  square 
miles,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  the  same 
amount  of  land  in  one  body  in  the  world  that  can 
furnish  more  cereal  and  flesh  food  for  the  human 
family.  Yet  at  the  time  here  named,  such  was 
the  condition  of  transportation  between  the  East 
and  the  West,  or  between  tlie  supply  and  the 
world's  market,  that  a  bushel  of  wheat  and  an 
Eastern  letter  were  at  the  same  cost  in  Iowa,  — 
twenty-five  cents.  The  railroad  had  not  then 
crossed  the  Mississippi.  Now,  postage  there  is 
two  cents,  and  wheat  from  seventy  cents  to  a 
dollar.  The  railroad  has  arrived  in  Iowa,  seven 
thousand  four  hundred  and  seventy-eight  miles 
of  it.i 

Illinois  and  Iowa  are  fair  illustrations  of  all  our 
Western  States  prior  to  the  introduction  of  the 
railroad  system.  They,  from  the  first,  had  their 
princely  wealth  in  cereals  and  meats,  as  truly  as 
in  the  mines,  and  each  staple  was  awaiting  equall}'' 
development  and  a  market.  The  wheat  and  the 
corn  were  in  the  loam,  potentially  and  waiting,  as 

1  Notes  on  Iowa  Territory.  "With  a  Map.  By  Willard  Bar- 
rows, United  States  Deputy  Surveyor.     Cincinnati,  1845. 


THE   RAILWAY    SYSTEM   OF   THE   WEST.  317 

really  as  the  strata  of  coals  and  ores  underneath. 
The  great  pine  forests  in  Washington  Territory 
were  worth  nothing,  except  enough  for  one  house 
for  a  resident  owner,  till  he  could  have  trans- 
portation. 

"  Trees  six  and  seven  feet  in  diameter  and  two 
hundred  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high  are 
very  common,  perhaps  rarely  out  of  sight,  in  the 
forest  in  "Washington  Territory,  Eight  feet  in 
diameter  and  three  hundred  feet  high  are  rare, 
but  still  not  at  all  uncommon.  The  builder  of  the 
telegraph  line  had  hitched  his  wire,  in  one  case, 
to  a  cedar  which  was  fourteen  feet  in  diameter.  A 
monster  tree  that  had  fallen  —  the  forests  are  full 
of  fallen  trees  —  measured  three  hundred  and 
twenty-five  feet  long ;  and  another  tree  at  a  dis- 
tance of  ninety  feet  from  its  root  was  seven  feet 
in  diameter."  ^  An  editor  at  Olympia  informed 
the  author  in  October,  1885,  that  they  were  pre- 
paring for  the  New  Orleans  Exposition  a  section 
from  a  Washington  Territory  tree  nineteen  feet  in 
diameter. 

The  grains,  meats,  hides,  ores,  coals,  timber,  and 
wool  have  practically  been  waiting  for  their  oppor- 
tunity in  the  great  North  American  West  a  thou- 
sand years.  They  were  natural  values,  on  deposit, 
without  interest,  and  subject  to  draft  for  all  the 
uses  and  profits  of  conmierce.  I  was  once  offered 
very  heavy  timber-land  on  the  head-waters  of  the 

1  Across  the  Continent.    By  Samuel  Bowles.    1865.     p.  206. 


318        THE   RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF    THE   WEST. 

Conuecticut  for  one  dollar  an  acre,  but  only  the  bear 
and  deer  and  myself  seemed  able  to  reach  it.  A 
raih'oad  has  since  made  it  a  piece  of  good  property. 

To  state  the  case  briefly,  and  then  expand  and 
illustrate  it  by  items,  the  board  of  appraisers  or 
of  valuation  for  the  United  States  consists  of 
three,  —  the  highway,  the  canal,  and  the  railroad. 
Each  rises  in  valuation  on  all  real  estate  and 
local  products  within  accessible  distances ;  the 
railroads  mark  highest  and  last.  What  is  not 
appraised,  as  in  central  Wyoming,  where  the 
United  States  have  not  yet  surveyed  the  lands, 
as  not  yet  in  demand  enough  to  be  put  on  the 
market,  up  in  Alaska  on  the  Yukon,  or  out  on 
the  Aleutian  Islands,  has  no  nominal  value, — 
that  is,  value  which  can  be  named.  The  timber, 
arable  lands,  fisheries,  ores,  and  furs  have  the 
same  natural  value  which  they  would  have  in 
central  New  York ;  but  to  assign  to  them  con- 
vertible and  commercial  worth,  this  board  of  three 
United  States  appraisers  must  go  on  the  ground 
and  fix  prices. 

In  early  times  our  Eastern  vessels  went  around 
Cape  Horn  to  California  for  cargoes  of  hides,  and 
agents  contracted  for  the  ship-load.  "  The  num- 
ber of  cattle  required  might  vary  from  a  thousand 
to  tens  of  thousands.  In  some  instances  they 
were  corraled,  and  let  out  by  tens  and  twenties, 
to  be  despatched  with  sledges,  or  by  other  methods. 
In  later  years  they  were  sometimes  felled  in  large 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST.         319 

numbers  by  bullets,  while  grazing  with  the  herd 
on  the  plains.  The  hides,  tallow,  horns,  and 
hanks  were  preserved ;  but  the  carcasses  were  left 
either  in  piles  or  scattered  over  the  plains,  to  dry 
away  and  disappear  under  the  scorching  rays  of 
the  sun.  .  .  .  The  bones  of  the  heads  were  some- 
times used  for  the  construction  of  fences  around 
small  lots  in  the  vicinity  of  their  dwellings.  In 
one  place,  even  to  this  day,  there  remains  such 
a  fence  nearly  two  rods  in  length.  The  fence  was 
of  the  thickness  of  two  heads."  Before  the  Mis- 
sions were  broken  up  by  the  Government,  the 
padres,  anticipating  the  confiscation  of  both  lands 
and  live-stock,  slaughtered  -immense  numbers  of 
cattle.  "  It  is  estimated  that  in  those  three  years 
there  were  sent  from  the  JNIissions  to  the  ports 
three  hundred  thousand  hides  with  the  tallow."  ^ 

But  the  railroad  came  in  and  appraised  not  only 
the  hides  and  tallow  and  horns,  but  the  beef  and 
bones  also,  and  even  the  hair,  as  worth  transpor- 
tation. After  spending  a  month  in  1885  on  the 
ranches  and  ranges  of  Wyoming,  the  writer  reads 
the  above  account  from  eastern  California  with 
commercial  horror.  Dana's  "  Two  Years  Before 
the  Mast"  furnishes  a  graphic  detail  of  this  in- 
calculable waste  on  the  Pacific  coast,  while  that 
country  was  waiting  for  a  government  and  our 
continental  railways. 

1  Histoiy  of  California.  By  E.  S.  Capron,  Boston,  1854. 
pp.  29-31. 


320        TlIK    KAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST, 

The  expenses  for  doing  business  beyond  the 
plains  and  on  the  Pacific  slope,  before  the  Union 
and  Central  and  the  Northern  and  Southern  Pa- 
cific roads  were  opened,  left  bulky  goods,  in  the 
mountains  and  beyond,  almost  valueless  to  the 
East;  while  the  necessaries  to  be  carried  West 
were  placed  almost  above  price  by  the  cost  of 
transportation. 

In  1849,  packages  not  exceeding  fifteen  pounds 
were  carried  by  Adams  &  Co.'s  Express  from  New 
York  to  San  Francisco  at  the  rate  of  seventy-five 
cents  per  pound.  The  charge  was  three  dollars  on 
an  ordinary  daguerreotype,  and  twelve  dollars  on 
a  package  the  size  of  a  common  novel. 

Julesburg  is  in  Colorado,  now  a  station  on  the 
Union  Pacific,  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine  miles 
east  of  Cheyenne.  In  18G4  there  arrived  at  this 
shanty  town,  from  the  States,  3,574  wagons  ot 
freight,  under  guard  of  4,258  men,  and  hauled  by 
28,592  animals.  At  that  date  Holladay's  Over- 
land Express  had  been  under  way  two  or  three 
years,  —  started  on  a  capital  of  $2,500,000,  —  and 
this  year  it  was  emjDloying,  between  the  Missouri 
and  the  mountains,  15,000  men,  20,000  wagons, 
and  150,000  animals,  on  a  capital  of  $20,000,000. 
In  1864  it  transported  west  100,000,000  pounds 
of  freight,  and  in  1865  double  this  amount,  at  a 
cost  of  fifteen  cents  to  the  pound.  Bundles  were 
charged  seventeen  cents  a  pound  for  every  hun- 
dred miles,  and  passengers  paid  from  thirty  to  fifty 


THE   RAILWAY   SYSTEM   OF   THE   WEST.        321 

cents  a  mile.  Freights  were  from  thirty-five  to 
sixty  days  from  the  Missouri  to  Denver,  while 
the  stage  made  the  same  trip  in  six  days.  The 
next  year  (1866)  Government  paid  this  company 
$735,000  for  carrying  the  mail  and  other  Govern- 
ment matter.^ 

Indeed,  Governor  Stanford,  of  California,  did  not 
lift  too  soon  that  first  spadeful  of  earth  for  the 
Pacific  Kailroad  at  Sacramento,  in  January,  1863. 
Yet  this  vast  amount  of  merchandise,  to  be  loaded 
and  unloaded  by  human  hands  and  hauled  by 
animals,  was  as  one  solitary  baggage-wagon  com- 
pared with  what  those  prairie  and  mountain  and 
Pacific  roads  are  now  doing. 

The  railroad  makes  it  possible  to  utilize  natural 
values  and  convert  them  into  property,  and  thus 
swell  and  lengthen  all  the  channels  of  commerce. 
This  is  more  evidently  true  in  our  new  country, 
where  natural  resources  are  so  much  more  abun- 
dant than  in  the  old  colonial  States,  and  cover 
immensely  more  area.  The  great  staples  of  life 
have  tlieir  prices  fixed  by  the  railroad.  The  blank 
schedule  of  grains,  meats,  wools,  hides,  coals,  ores, 
timber,  and  lumber  does  not  have  its  column  of 
prices  filled  until  the  railroad  comes  in. 

The  Illinois  lands  were  as  rich  and  as  sus- 
ceptible of  their  immense  burden  of  agricultural 
products  in  1850  as  they  were  in  1880.  At  the 
former  date  the  State  had  46,208  farms  ;  at  the 

^  Overland  Traction  Engine  Co.     Report  for  1865.     p.  31. 
21 


322        THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST. 

latter,  255,741.  A  valid  reason  for  both  facts  is 
not  far  to  be  found.  It  was  not  till  1842  that  the 
Boston  and  Albany  Road  was  opened  to  the  Hud- 
son, and  not  till  1850  that  the  sill  and  strap  rail 
was  removed  from  tlie  track  between  Schenectady 
and  Utica.  Why  should  wheat  and  beef  and  pork 
be  raised,  and  then  stacked  up  in  Illinois  ?  It  was 
not  till  1851  that  the  cars  could  meet  Western  prod- 
ucts on  Lake  Erie,  and  not  till  1853  that  Chicago 
saw  a  locomotive.  What  call  was  there  for  more 
farms  in  Illinois  in  1850  ?  If  she  would  ship  her 
supplies  east  by  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  she  must 
haul  them  over  the  Alleghanies  on  the  Portage 
Eoad,  or  store  them  three  years  at  Wheeling,  wait- 
ing for  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  to  open 
there  in  1853.  Illinois  had  had  the  first  of  prairie 
railroads  in  1838,  running  from  Meredosia  to  Spring- 
field  ;  but  it  proved  a  failure,  and  no  wonder,  for 
six  inches  of  snow  would  stop  its  engine.  General 
Semples  afterward  put  tires  two  feet  wide  to  the 
wheels  of  this  locomotive,  and  attempted  to  run  it 
here  and  there  on  the  open  prairie.  The  experi- 
ment was  akin  in  wildness  to  the  one  with  sails  on 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  and  on  the  Charleston  and 
Hamburg  railroads,  in  1830. 

In  1880  Illinois  had  increased  her  number  of 
farms  from  46,208  to  255,741.  Well  she  might, 
for  it  paid,  since  the  State  then  had  7,955  miles  of 
railroad,  —  one  mile  of  road  to  every  seven  square 
miles  of  land.     The  farms  must  have  been  few  on 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST.        323 

which  the  whistle  of  the  locomotive  could  not 
be  heard,  and  often  to  take  on  wheat  for  England. 
Other  things  being  equal,  it  pays  to  make  grain 
and  meat  where  the  whistle  of  a  locomotive  can 
be  heard.  My  friend  need  no  longer  feed  his  un- 
threshed  wheat  from  the  stalk,  for  a  railroad  now 
runs  within  sight  of  that  farm. 

When  these  railroads  began  to  come  into  Illinois 
freely  in  1861,  the  average  value  of  land  went  up 
from  five  to  fifteen  dollars  an  acre,  and  in  1880 
improved  lands  averaged  from  thirty  to  fifty  dol- 
lars an  acre;  whereas,  between  1840  and  1850, 
when  the  State  had  one  railroad  only,  and  it  a  fail- 
ure, land  loaded  the  market  at  Government  price. 
At  the  same  time  (1880)  the  price  of  corn,  beei^ 
and  pork  had  almost  doubled,  and  wheat  had  gone 
up  about  threefold. 

The  reasons  are  obvious.  The  railroad  is  able 
largely  to  triumph  over  space  between  the  producer 
and  the  consumer,  and  can  create  markets  for  the 
farmer.  It  is  able  to  offer  the  Liverpool  trade  to 
the  Dakota  wheat-fields.  By  this  interweaving  of 
our  own  country  with  freight  lines  prices  are  equal- 
ized across  the  continent,  and  it  is  a  matter  of 
comparative  indifference  whether  one's  farm  be 
west  of  the  Mississippi  or  east  of  the  Hudson. 
The  price  of  grain  is  affected  more  by  fifteen  miles 
in  a  freight-wagon  than  by  fifteen  hundred  miles 
in  the  cars.  la  the  old  times  of  the  batrorafTe-wafion 
between  Buffalo  and  New  York,  the  freight  on  a 


324        THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST. 

barrel  of  tiour  was  ten  dollars  ;  the  Erie  Canal  re- 
duced it  to  two  dollars  in  1825  ;  and  now  the  rail- 
road reduces  it  to  perhaps  thirty-five  cents.  Or, 
to  use  terms  in  the  official  reports,  in  1817  freight 
was  one  hundred  dollars  a  ton  from  Buffalo  to 
New  York  ;  in  1825  it  was  twenty  dollars  by  Erie 
Canal ;  and  now  it  is  three  dollars  or  so. 

Nor  is  it  too  bold  a  figure  of  speech  to  say  that 
the  railroads  create  markets.  In  proportion  as 
space  and  time  are  overcome  by  the  locomotive, 
the  opportunities  for  the  sale  of  products,  agricul- 
tural and  mechanical,  are  brought  nearer  to  tlie 
farm  and  factory  and  shop.  With  all  our  famil- 
iarity with  the  railway  in  this  broad  domain,  hav- 
ing its  right-angled  diameters  of  two  thousand  and 
three  thousand  miles,  we  do  not  yet  comprehend 
the  unification  and  the  centralization  of  our  na- 
tional industries  and  interests  by  the  railway  sys- 
tem. Steam  can  put  all  our  marketable  and 
movable  products  into  one  place  in  a  few  hours 
or  days,  thus  maintaining  a  kind  of  equation  of 
prices.  So  the  railway  forces  of  the  North  and  the 
South  and  the  East  and  the  West,  set  over  against 
each  other,  preserve  an  equilibrium  in  trade  prices, 
as  the  opposite  pivots  of  the  mariner's  compass  keep 
it  level  and  reliable  on  the  roughest  sea.  Once  on 
the  car,  any  barrel  of  flour  in  the  United  States  is 
within  twenty  possible  days  of  the  table  of  any 
man  who  lives  on  the  railroad  in  this  country. 
The  greatest  speed  for  any  distance,  so  far  as  ap- 


THE    RAILWAY   SYSTEM   OF   THE   WEST.        325 

pears,  is  made  by  tlie  New  York  and  Chicago  Lim- 
ited, —  913  miles  in  25  hours,  or  35  miles  an  hour 
for  consecutive  hours ;  and  no  one  conversant  with 
the  history  and  progress  of  mechanics  will  pre- 
sume to  say  that  the  highest  limit  of  train  speed 
has  been  attained.  This  is  practical  annihilation 
of  space  and  time  to  the  producer  and  consumer. 
Gladstone  raises  some  practical  fears  in  his  article 
of  1878  in  the  "North  American  Eeview,"  over 
the  preservation  of  a  fragmentary  empire,  like  the 
British,  in  forty  —  and  now,  with  Burniah,  furty-oue 
—  isolated  portions.  In  our  broad  territory  the 
railway  system  unifies  all  our  interests. 

This  statement  may  be  extended  to  cover  the 
United  States  and  more  or  less  of  Europe.  The 
prices  of  bread  and  meat  supplies  in  Chicago 
affect  those  of  Liverpool ;  and  so  much  so,  that  with- 
in the  last  ten  years  Great  Britain  has  been  moved 
to  turn  one  fourth  of  her  wheat  acreage  to  some 
other  uses.  In  1880  the  United  States  exported 
$389,000,000  worth  of  grains,  meats,  and  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  dairy.  As  this  importation  must  tone 
down  prices  there  on  these  articles,  it  must  compel 
a  reduction  of  the  prices  of  lands  and  rentals.  It 
would  be  no  very  strange  thing,  therefore,  if  the 
land  question  of  Ireland  and  England  and  Scot- 
land, so  often  and  for  so  long  time  postponed  in 
Parliament,  should  be  forced  to  a  settlement  on  our 
Western  prairies.  The  locomotive  and  the  steam- 
ship are  forcing  English  and  American  lands  into 


320        TlIK    l: A II, WAV    SYSTKM    OF    THE    WEST. 

juxtaposiLioii.  The  Xcw  World  lias  already  done 
singular  and  surprising  things  for  the  Old  World. 
In  reality,  and  as  among  bottom  forces,  the  United 
States  introduced  the  English  corn-law  question 
and  closed  it  in  1848.  The  world  grovvs  smaller, 
the  Atlantic  ocean  narrower,  St.  Paul  and  London 
talk  with  each  other  hourly,  and  the  human  family, 
in  its  different  brandies,  are  coming  to  live  nearer 
together,  as  in  one  city  or  block.  The  term  "  for- 
eigner "  is  dying  out,  —  the  highways  between  the 
nations  are  so  many  and  broad  and  inexpensive. 
An  old  advertisement  of  fares  on  emigrant  placards 
in  England  told  more  tlian  tlie  passer-by  read, — 
"  London  to  Chicago,  £G  8.9."  It  will  be  wisely 
done,  if  Americans  allow  that  term,  "  foreigner," 
to  pass  kindly  and  gently  into  disuse.  Trade 
makes  nations  and  laws,  and  one  need  not  move 
long  on  the  great  channels  of  commerce,  on  either 
side  of  the  ocean,  to  notice  that  there  are  no 
foreigners. 

The  acres  and  grains  and  meats  and  other  sup- 
plies for  human  wants  are  coming  nearer  and  nearer 
to  the  same  prices  in  different  cities,  no  matter 
what  oceans  or  mountains  lie  between.  All  this 
was  preordained  when  the  locomotive  first  pulled 
out  from  Boston  and  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia, 
and  when  the  first  train  of  cars  turned  the  pitch 
of  the  watershed  on  the  Alleghanies  and  went 
"out  West." 

When  those  five  shovelfuls  of  earth  were  thrown 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST.        327 

up,  as  on  July  4,  1828,  for  tlie  Baltimore  and  Ohio, 
—  the  first  passenger  road  in  the  United  States,  — 
by  Charles  Carroll,  the  only  surviving  signer  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  for  the  first 
railroad  in  Ohio  (1835),  and  for  the  first  in  Illinois, 
and  for  the  Kentucky,  Frankfort,  and  Lexington 
Eoad  (both  in  1838),  deeds  were  done  hardly  sur- 
passed by  any  industrial  acts  for  the  civilization  of 
the  world.  When  those  last  spikes  were  driven  at 
the  completion  of  the  Union  and  Central  Pacific 
railway  and  of  the  Northern  Pacific,  of  the  South- 
ern and  of  the  Mexican  Central,  the  echo  of  the 
hammers  and  the  salvos  of  artillery  and  the  ring- 
ing of  bells  sent  good  news  to  man  like  "  the  shot 
heard  round  the  world."  The  human  race  never 
before  took  so  long  a  stride  as  when  they  then 
stepped  over  the  Alleghanies  and  struck  out  for  the 
Pacific.  It  was  our  hap  to  see  the  waving  banners 
and  to  hear  the  glad  shouts  when  men  passed  west- 
ward through  Winnipeg  —  the  old  Fort  Garry  of 
the  Hudson  Bay  Company  —  to  drive  the  last  spike 
for  the  Canadian  Pacific  early  in  November,  1885. 
Then  another  trunk  road,  believed  to  be  the  long- 
est in  the  world,  —  2,906  miles,  —  was  completed, 
and  North  America  was  put  under  another  bond 
to  aid  the  interests  and  keep  the  peace  of  man- 
kind. How  different  from  the  time  when  old  Fort 
Garry  was  in  its  glory  of  solitude,  and  the  largest 
monopoly,  save  one,  in  the  world,  held  sway  over 
territory  "one  third  larger  than  all  Europe,  larger 


328        THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST. 

than  the  United  States  of  to-day,  Alaska  included, 
by  half  a  niillion  square  miles."  ^ 

For  nearly  two  liundred  years  that  iron  monop- 
oly kept  white  men  and  civilization  out  of  tliat 
vast  region,  only  letting  in  a  man  with  a  steel  trap 
to  bring  out  a  beaver  for  the  company.  Now  wor- 
thy emigrants  from  Great  Britain  will  go  in  freely 
by  the  ten  thousand,  and  factories  will  take  the 
place  of  steel  traps  around  the  waterfalls,  and 
grain-fields  will  be  opened  up  equal  to  three  times 
the  area  of  all  England. 

But  this  chapter  has  to  do  with  the  United 
States,  and  we  return  from  abroad  and  into  the 
West.  The  power  of  the  railway  system  to  develop 
a  country,  naturally  inviting,  is  well  illustrated  in 
Missom'i.  At  the  opening  of  the  civil  war  that 
magnificent  and  almost  empire  State  of  more  than 
sixty-eight  thousand  square  miles  had  only  six 
hundred  miles  of  railroad  in  operation ;  but  at 
the  return  of  peace  it  took  a  new  departure. 
"  Instead  of  numbering  our  railroads  by  a  few 
hundred  miles,  they  are  counted  by  thousands 
of  miles  [1883].  In  that  part  of  the  State  north 
of  the  Missouri  Eiver  there  is  not  a  single  county 
which  is  not  traversed  by  at  least  one  railroad, 
and  in  many  cases  by  many.  South  of  the  Mis- 
souri the  supply  of  railroads  is  not  so  great,  but 
yet  it  is  very  considerable.      Instead  of  consum- 

1  Oregon  :  The  Struggle  for  Possession.  By  William  Bar- 
rows.    Boston,   1885,   p.   39. 


THE   llAILWAY   SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST.         329 

ing  a  week  to  reach  our  great  city  from  distant 
parts  of  our  State,  we  can  reach  it  from  the  same 
points  in  less  than  a  day.  Instead  of  having 
but  one  market,  we  have  a  multitude  of  markets  ; 
instead  of  being  practically  excluded  from  the 
world,  many  months  every  year,  we  are  in  constant 
intercourse  with  it  every  day,  and  I  might  say 
every  night.  Large  and  important  cities  have 
sprung  up  in  our  midst.  The  log-cabins  of  the 
farmer  have  been  transformed  into  habitations 
of  comfort,  and  often  of  elegance.  Our  public 
schoolhouses  have  been  multiplied  and  enlarged, 
and  in  many  cases  students  of  these  institutions 
are  fitted  for  Yale  and  Harvard.  The  price  of  farm 
labor,  which  in  1860  was  eight  and  ten  dollars  per 
month  and  less,  is  now  fifteen  dollars  per  month  or 
more.  The  entire  assessed  value  of  the  real  estate 
in  Missouri  was,  in  1860,  S2-i9,469,620.91  ;  in 
1880,  $406,104,426."! 

It  should  be  considered  that  as  late  as  1850 
there  was  not  one  mile  of  railroad  west  of  the 
Mississippi  Eiver. 

It  has  been  stated  that  a  railroad  creates  a  mar- 
ket by  shortening  up  time  and  space  between 
producers  and  consumers,  be  it  in  agriculture  or 
mechanics.  Conjointly  it  stimulates  production  in 
sections  naturally  adapted  to  it,  but  formerly  too 
distant  from  markets  to  make  production  profitable. 

^  The  Railroad  and  the  Farmer.  By  Hon.  Edward  Atkin- 
son.    18S3,  p.  54.     (\n  Agricultural  licvieu;  New  York. ) 


330        THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    \YEST. 

Ill  proYiiig  tliese  two  statements,  a  box  of  straw- 
berries ill  Illinois  will  serve  us  equally  as  well  as 
the  Iron  Mountain  in  Missouri,  both  waiting  for 
cars.  In  June,  1869,  the  writer  was  visiting  in 
CobJen,  Illinois.  The  whole  region  was  one  vast 
fruit-garden,  opened  about  ten  years  before,  on  the 
advent  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad.  There 
were  peach-orchards  of  twelve  thousand  trees,  and 
pear  of  twenty  tliousand,  and  strawberry-beds  of 
half  an  acre  to  ten  acres  each,  as  also  immense 
quantities  of  small  berries  and  early  vegetables. 
The  principal  markets  were  Cliicago,  323  miles, 
Milwaukee,  408,  Detroit,  610,  sometimes  St.  Louis, 
120  miles.  There  were  special  express  fruit  trains, 
and  these  delicacies  from  the  earlier  and  "  sunny 
South  "  were  hurried  north.  The  shipping  clerk 
at  the  station  furnished  me  these  figures  for  the 
strawberry  season  of  that  year,  nineteen  days : 
572,496  boxes,  one  quart  each,  eqnal  to  17,890 
bushels,  forwarded.  But  for  the  railroad,  only  so 
many  of  these  boxes  would  have  been  needed  as 
would  supply  families  and  strawberry  festivals 
in  that  border  village. 

In  running  down  the  Columbia  River  valley  by 
cars,  and  up  that  river  by  steamer,  in  the  autumn 
of  1885,  our  attention  was  called  to  immense 
salmon  canneries  on  the  banks ;  and  to  some  huge 
fishing  wheels  or  machines,  projecting  from  the 
shore  into  the  river.  A  leading  operator  in  this 
interest   informed    me   that   duriuff    the    current 


THE   RAILWAY   SYSTEM    OF   THE    ^VEST.         331 

salmon  season,  mainly  June  and  July,  be  had 
put  up  a  million  and  a  half  of  cans.  A  can  of 
salmon  is  one  pound,  and  a  case  is  forty-eight 
cans.  Before  the  railroads  were  opened  to  the 
Pacific  this  branch  of  commerce  was  slight.  In 
1866  the  product  Avas  only  4,000  cases,  but  in 
1884  the  number  had  gone  up  to  672,350  cases, 
which  realized  to  the  people  more  than  three 
millions  of  dollars.  "The  foreign  demand  has 
become  a  settled  fact,  and  Oregon  canned  salmon 
is  being  used  in  nearly  all  civilized  countries  as  a 
daily  article  of  diet.  .  .  .  Since  the  opening  of  the 
Northern  Pacific,  fresh  salmon  are  exported  to  the 
Eastern  States  in  refrigerator  cars,  —  an  export, 
although  it  bids  fair  to  increase  each  year,  which 
can  only  be  conducted  at  each  season  for  two  or 
three  months."^  All  the  United  States  to  the  east- 
ward of  the  Eocky  Mountains  is  supplied  with 
the  canned  salmon ;  wliile  Australia,  England,  and 
other  European  markets  are  extensive  customers, 
and  the  business  is  thought  to  be  capable  of  great 
expansion. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  schedule  and  tabulate  all 
the  commercial  interests  on  our  northwest  coast, 
which  the  railroad  has  created  or  caused  to  be  de- 
veloped, in  order  to  show  the  relations  of  the  rail- 
road in  our  new  country  to  national  growth.  The 
brevity  to  which  we  are  constrained  compels  to 

1  Progi-es9  of  the  State  of  Oregon  and  of  the  City  of  Portland, 
from  1870  to  1885.     By  William  IJeid.     1885. 


332        THE    KAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST. 

the  presentation  of  the  topics  by  glances.  It  is  due 
largely  to  the  introduction  of  railroads  into  Oregon 
that  the  State  liad,  in  1880,  a  population  of  144,000, 
and  farm  value  to  the  amount  of  $56,000,000 ; 
manufactured  goods  for  the  year  preceding  amounted 
to  almost  $11,000,000,  and  1,782,537  head  of  live- 
stock. Similar  showing  might  be  made  for  all  the 
States  between  the  Pacific  and  the  Alleghanies ; 
each  was  born  of  the  railroad  system,  as  one  of 
the  forces  in  the  leading  nations  of  the  world. 
When  Chicago  had  but  one  mail  a  week,  in  1834, 
which  was  all  it  needed,  the  United  States  was 
quite  in  the  rear  among  the  nations.  In  1880, 
Mulhall,  comparing  the  nations  and  speaking  of 
the  industries  of  the  world,  says :  "  At  present 
Great  Britain  holds  the  foremost  place,  but  the 
United  States  will  probably  pass  us  in  the  ensuing 
decade."  ^  In  the  matter  of  wealth  it  stood  at  the 
head  of  all  the  nations. 

It  is  the  locomotive  which  has  hauled  up  the 
United  States  to  the  front  in  the  procession  of  the 
nations.  In  his  reports  on  the  International  Ex- 
position at  Paris,  in  1867,  Michel  Chevalier  uses 
this  remarkable  expression :  "  It  seems  that  the 
supreme  authority  is  about  to  escape  from  western 
and  central  Europe,  and  to  pass  to  the  New  World." 

We  recur  to  the  railroad  creation  of  markets  and 
the  utilization  of  neglected  values.    In  1870  I  was 

1  Balance  Sheet  of  the  World  for  Ten  Years,  —  1870-1880, 
pp.  3,  41. 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST.        333 

over  the  Kansas  Pacific,  —  the  year  of  its  opening 
to  Denver.  At  Salina  we  spent  the  night  where  cat- 
tle were  waiting  by  the  ten  thousand  to  be  sold  and 
shipped  East.  Owners  and  purchasers  and  cow- 
boys thronged  the  station,  and  the  herds  covered 
the  prairie  in  all  directions  toward  the  horizon. 
How  those  ranch-men  of  old,  Abraham,  and  Lot, 
and  Jacob  and  his  twelve  cowboys,  "  whose  trade 
had  been  about  cattle  from  their  youth,"  would  have 
enjoyed  that  day  and  night  at  Salina,  Kansas ! 

The  road  was  said  to  be  under  contract  to  ship 
East  seventy  thousand  head  between  June  and  De- 
cember of  that  year.  Some  of  those  herds  were 
said  to  have  been  on  the  trail  six  months.  They 
came  from  the  Indian  Territory  and  the  extremes  of 
Texas,  and'  from  ranches  and  ranges  where  New 
and  Old  Mexico  border  on  each  other,  —  drives  of 
five  hundred,  eight  hundred,  and  even  a  thousand 
miles.  A  few  years  before,  there  was  not  a  mile 
of  railroad  west  of  the  Mississippi  to  help  on  a 
steer  toward  his  slaughter ;  and  at  that  long  dis- 
tance from  a  meat  market  and  a  tannery,  he  was 
not  worth  the  stripping  of  his  hide.  As  we  have 
seen,  they  were  worth  only  that  in  California  in 
those  days,  though  near  to  shipping  ports.  Now, 
by  our  railway  system,  those  unlimited  American 
pastures,  in  which  England  could  be  secreted,  have 
been  placed,  if  we  may  so  illu.strate,  just  back  of 
the  abattoirs  of  Kansas  City  and  St.  Louis  and 
Chicaso  and  Brishton. 


334        THE    R.VIIAVAY    SYSTEM    OF    THE   WEST. 

A  month  among  the  cattle  and  horse  and  sheep 
ranges  in  Wyoming,  in  the  autumn  of  1885,  and 
again  in  1887,  furnished  a  good  sample  of  this 
great  American  industry,  and  the  wealth  which 
lies  in  it.  Areas  of  natural  pasture  we  passed 
over,  where  ample  counties  of  New  England  could 
be  placed  in  tier  right  and  left  and  in  front  to  the 
horizon ;  and  beyond  it  another  tier,  and  so  on,  — 
for  Wyoming  is  as  large  as  twelve  States  like  Mas- 
sachusetts, though  it  has  a  large  per  cent  which 
cannot  be  grazed.  However,  its  river  valleys  and 
mesas  and  natural  parks  in  the  mountains  are  im- 
measurable for  a  month  in  the  saddle.  Its  natural 
grasses,  it  is  claimed,  make  better  beef  than  grain- 
feeding  in  the  East.  Of  the  197,497  head,  pur- 
chased in  one  year  by  one  cattle-dealer* in  Chicago, 
and  for  which  he  paid  more  than  thirteen  million 
dollars,  very  few  would  know  grain  by  sight  or 
taste.  In  cattle,  Wyoming  leads  nine  of  the 
United  States,  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  rail- 
roads on  the  three  sides  of  the  Territory  make 
a  market  accessible.  But  in  riding  over  those 
pastures,  limited  somewhat  by  snow-peaked  moun- 
tains, but  more  by  the  horizon,  and  seeing  herds 
from  one  thousand  to  thirty  thousand,  it  was  pain- 
ful to  think  how  through  centuries  the  country  had 
lain  waste,  and  a  hungry  world  had  waited  for  the 
locomotive  to  go  in  and  bring  out  beef.  The 
ranch  and  range  area  of  our  country  is  about 
forty-four  per  cent  of  the  whole,  excluding  Alaska, 


THE    KAIL  WAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   AVEST.         ooO 

and  lies  in  fifteen  States  and  Territories,  Abroad 
it  would  cover  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  France, 
Germany,  Denmark,  Holland,  Belgium,  Austria, 
Hungary,  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal,  and  one  fifth  of 
Russia  in  Europe,  combined.  One  is  pardonable 
for  being  sceptical  over  this  statement.  The  rail- 
roads are  in  good  progress  toward  making  this 
once  immense  waste  land  serviceable  to  mankind, 
and  many  of  the  49,417,782  head  of  cattle  which 
were  on  it  in  1884  are  already  on  the  way  to  the 
great  meat  markets  of  America,  and  to  family 
tables  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  increase  of  railroads  and  of  agricultural 
products  in  the  United  States  has  moved  off  into 
our  new  country  with  an  even  pace,  and  indeed  the 
evenness  is  remarkable.  The  number  of  miles  of 
new  road  each  year  is  inevitably  followed  by  a  pro- 
portional increase  in  the  tonnage  of  products  put  on 
the  market.  A  glance  at  Poor's  Railway  Manual, 
and  the  census  returns  and  tabulated  market  re- 
ports for  our  national  centres,  will  make  this  evi- 
dent. In  1880  there  were  exported  $389,000,000 
in  value  of  grains,  meats,  and  dairy  products.  How 
impossible  to  have  brought  so  much  from  inland 
to  tide-water  by  the  old  methods,  by  horse  and 
wheel  and  boat,  and  how  senseless  in  the  producers 
to  have  produced  it  for  export !  That  year  the 
tonnage  of  wheat  alone  raised  in  the  country  was 
seventy  millions.  The  idea  of  its  movement  to  a 
market  in  the  old  wavs  would  have  been  a  com- 


336        THE   RAILWAY   SYSTEM   OF   THE   WEST. 

merciul  absurdity ;  but  it  is  now  carried  as  Hour 
a  thousand  miles,  at  a  cost  of  from  five  to  seven 
dollars  a  ton.  In  other  words,  a  barrel  of  flour 
can  be  carried  from  IMinneapolis,  where  they  can 
manufacture  twenty-seven  thousand  barrels  a  day, 
to  New  York,  for  a  price  varying  from  fifty  cents 
to  seventy-five.  And  it  is  stated  on  good  authoi- 
ity  that  during  the  last  twenty  years  no  prices,  in 
leading  interests,  have  fallen  like  those  of  trans- 
portation ;  so  that  it  is  said  that  his  fair  wages  for 
one  day  will  freight  to  his  depot  the  supplies  of  a 
a  laboring  man  for  a  year.  His  breakfast  and 
dinner  and  supper  and  household  comforts  are 
brought  to  his  family  door  at  very  low  rates,  and 
where  Vanderbilt  gains  his  penny  by  the  trans- 
portation, the  workingman  gains  fifty  or  a  hun- 
dred. With  many  in  New  England  tlie  memory 
is  still  fresh,  when  the  great  sleicjh,  with  its  load 
of  beef,  pork,  poultry,  butter,  cheese,  and  oats, 
glided  from  the  hills  over  snow-banks  to  go  "  be- 
low." After  ten  days,  or  twenty  of  them,  it  re- 
turned with  West  India  goods  and  groceries, 
cottons,  cloths,  and  prints.  The  "  good  old  times  " 
returned,  as  some  sigh  for  them,  would  put  the 
old  sleigh  on  the  road  again,  and  there  would 
come  back  in  it  what  we  saw  in  the  stores  in  the 
Aroostook  twenty-five  years  ago,  —  hand-cards  and 
flax-wheels  and  the  family  loom. 

The  sighing  for  other  days  to  come  back,  and 
the  mourning  of  the  aged,  and  of  the  fossil  young, 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM   OF   THE    WEST.        337 

over  sad  and  degenerate  changes,  usually  gives 
amusement  in  quiet.  Every  age  has  it,  and  every 
improvement  is  admitted  with  regrets  and  under 
protest.  In  1673  there  was  published  "  The 
Grand  Concern  of  England  Explained."  It  gravely 
shows  the  miseries  and  trials,  and  the  ruin  of  trade, 
•occasioned  by  the  invention  and  use  of  coaches. 

For  the  present,  and  for  a  long  time  to  come, 
in  the  United  States,  it  cannot  be  a  question  of 
production  of  the  cereals,  meats,  and  articles  of 
heavy  manufacture,  for  which  we  have  the  raw 
material  in  the  natural  state  and  in  great  abun- 
dance, but  it  will  be  a  question  of  transportation 
and  delivery.  The  annihilation  of  space  and  time 
will  continue  and  probably  be  intensified,  and  our 
broad  domain  will  become  more  and  more  as  one 
place  for  the  market  of  our  products  with  one 
price.  During  tlie  last  ten  years  the  cost  of  dis- 
tribution by  the  longer  and  combined  railroads 
has  been  reduced  one  half,  and  we  are  warranted 
in  hoping  for  increased  reduction. 

Probably  not  more  than  one  sixth  of  our  arable 
knd  is  yet  under  the  plough,  so  that  we  may 
anticipate  not  only  a  continuous  but  large  expan- 
sion of  the  railway  system.  Mr.  Atkinson,  in  his 
admirable  pamphlet  above  quoted,  estimates  that 
within  the  present  century  tlie  development  and 
wants  of  the  country  will  demand  and  add  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  miles  more  to 
the  present  system  of  railroads.     As  our  growth  in 

22 


338        THE    UAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF    THE    WEST. 

the  line  of  new  settlements,  agriculture,  and  manu- 
factures has  usually  exceeded  even  ardent  predic- 
tions, the  above  estimate  will  probably  prove  to 
be  moderate  if  not  timid,  compared  with  final 
fact. 

Nor  let  it  be  supposed  that  these  anticipations 
and  predictions  rest  wholly  in  the  region  beyond 
the  Mississippi.  It  is  thought  that  a  region  could 
be  outlined  with  a  centre  in  the  Cumberland 
Mountains,  and  margins  running  into  Virginia,  the 
Carolinas,  Alabama,  Tennessee,  and  Kentucky,  em- 
bracing several  fold  more  wheat  acreage  than  Great 
Britain,  and  quite  as  good,  not  to  mention  its 
adaptation  to  the  production  of  tobacco,  hemp, 
corn,  cattle,  horses,  and  mules.  Of  the  mineral 
resources  there  but  little  is  known,  yet  enough 
to  establish  large  expectations  in  the  line  of 
coal,  iron,  copper,  and  salt.  Tlie  area  might  be 
as  large  as  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  —  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  square  miles.  This 
region  is  but  little  known,  sparsely  populated,  and 
the  inhabitants  of  one  half  of  it  are  so  isolated 
that  they  are  said  to  be  clothed  in  homespun  and 
have  yet  to  see  the  first  wheeled  carriage  and  loco- 
motive. Probably  by  many  American  travellers 
the  Swiss  mountains  are  much  better  understood 
than  the  Cumberland,  and  the  railroad  has  yet 
much  to  do  in  exploring  and  opening  up  our  own 
country  to  our  own  people. 

This  steady  growth  of  the  railway  system  into 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM   OF   THE   WEST.        339 

our  new  territory  is  an  exceedingly  interesting 
manifestation  of  modern  civilization,  and  a  few 
diagrams  of  its  progress  would  be  impressive.  Let 
them  indicate  the  movement  of  railroads  westward 
from  the  Alleghanies  to  the  Pacific  in  periods  of 
ten  years  each,  beginning  with  1840,  when  the 
locomotives  were  taking  first  looks  into  the  great 
West.  A  skeleton  map  with  state  boundaries, 
principal  rivers,  and  the  railway  growth  for  each 
successive  period  of  ten  years  —  four  periods  down 
to  1880 — would  be  a  surprising  story  and  study 
east  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  especially  east  of  the 
Hudson.  Each  decade  should  be  marked  in  differ- 
ent colors.  No  large  portion  of  the  world  ever 
took  on  so  great  a  change  in  four  successive 
decades. 

How  like  some  living  thing  this  railway  crea- 
ture has  rushed  off  into  space,  this  way  and  that, 
across  plains,  over  rivers,  and  through  mountains, 
reaching  out  with  its  tentacles,  feeling  for  a  way 
and  a  place,  and  making  fast.  One  cannot  avoid 
thinking  of  the  simile  of  Ezekiel,  when  in  his 
vision  he  saw  the  living  creatures  on  wheels.  At 
first  "a  whirlwind  came  out  of  the  north,  a  great 
cloud,  and  a  fire  infolding  itself.  And  the  crea- 
tures went  every  one  straight  forward.  Wliither 
the  spirit  was  to  go,  they  went ;  and  they  turned 
not  when  they  went.  Their  feet  were  straight 
feet.  The  spirit  of  the  living  creature  was  in  the 
wheels  ;  and  the  living  creatures  ran  and  returned 


340        THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST, 

as  the  appearance  of  a  flash  of  lightning."  Did 
Ezekiel  ever  see  a  locomotive  ? 

One  must  not  be  sceptical  over  the  continuance 
of  this  settlement  of  wild  country,  and  develop- 
ment of  its  resources,  and  consequent  supply  of 
the  markets  of  the  world.  Five  sixths  of  the  ara- 
ble land  of  the  United  States  is  yet  waiting  for 
the  plough.  Vast  tracts,  once  called  desert,  wait 
only  for  irrigation,  to  be  ploughed ;  and  when  the 
Government  organizes  a  water  system,  as  it  has  a 
land  system,  it  will  be  found  that,  with  rainfall 
and  rivers,  the  land  and  the  water  of  our  country 
are  in  fair  proportions.  The  Missouri,  the  Colo- 
rado, and  the  Columbia,  starting  near  together, 
central  for  the  regions  needing  irrigation,  and  ten 
thousand  feet  above  tide- water,  may  be,  and  yet 
will  be,  made  to  do  much  in  wetting  this  country. 
Already  the  Western  farmer,  with  this  process  and 
that,  and  this  product  and  that,  has  driven  the 
Great  American  Desert  from  our  school  geogra- 
phies. "  Whither  the  spirit  was  to  go  they  went, 
and  they  turned  not  when  they  went ; "  and  the 
doomed  lands  of  Pike  and  Long  and  Hazen,  not 
farmers  but  soldiers,  are  controlling  the  prices  of 
meats  and  breadstuffs  in  foreign  markets. 

Moreover,  the  United  States  has  the  multiplying 
population  and  the  national  policy  to  continue 
this  wonderful  development.  In  the  decade  end- 
ing with  1879,  our  increase  in  population  was 
11,920,000. 


THE   RAILWAY   SYSTEM    OF   THE   ^VEST.        341 

A  few  comparisons  will  aid  in  forecasting  our 
growth  by  showing  how  largely  the  chances  are 
with  us.  Leaving  out  Alaska  from  the  United 
States,  and  Russia  and  Turkey  from  Europe,  let 
us  set  in  contrast  in  several  particulars  the  two 
countries.  As  to  area,  the  United  States  has  two 
square  miles  to  Europe's  one,  as  above  reduced, 
while  the  arable  land  in  the  two  is  equal.  Europe 
has  one  hundred  and  forty-five  persons  to  the  square 
mile,  and  the  United  States  about  sixteen.  The 
debt  of  Europe  averages  to  the  individual  (1880) 
$74.64,  and  that  of  the  United  States,  $36.85. 
Since  1848,  when  the  United  States  had  compara- 
tively no  debt,  the  European  has  increased  three- 
fold, and  is  still  increasing.  In  1866  our  war 
debt  averaged  $83.35  to  a  person,  but  in  1880  had 
been  reduced  to  the  above  figures.  The  national 
expenditures  in  Europe  averaged  $10.15  to  the 
person,  and  in  the  United  States,  $5.35.  Taxes 
on  the  earnings  of  the  people  in  Italy,  France,  and 
Great  Britain  averaged  twenty  per  cent,  and  in 
the  United  States  nine  and  one  fourth.  In  Eu- 
rope, one  man  in  five  of  all  fit  to  bear  arms  is  a 
soldier  in  active  service,  and  in  the  United  States, 
one  in  four  hundred.  In  the  army  and  navy  of 
Europe  there  are,  in  camp  and  barracks  and  on 
shipboard,  2,100,000  able-bodied  men.  These  are 
not  producers,  and  so  not  only  detract  so  much 
from  the  producing  forces  of  these  European  na- 
tions, but  consume  the  labors  of  very  many  in 


342        TllK    UAiLWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST. 

their  support.  The  standing  army  of  tlic  United 
States  is  twenty-five  thousand  only.  Wliile  the 
Avar  policy  and  the  war  footing-  of  these  European 
states  withdraw  so  much  from  their  progressive 
I'orce,  the  United  States,  with  her  peace  policy  and 
small  army,  is  left  quietly  to  develop  the  conti- 
nent and  enlarge  the  nation.  If  thej^  go  to  war, 
and  we  continue  at  work,'  who  can  doubt  our  con- 
tinued progress,  in  which  Gladstone  said  we  were 
passing  Great  Britain  "  in  a  canter  "  ? 

Some  per  cents  of  growth  given  in  the  census 
of  1880  are  worthy  of  grateful  memory.     In  the 
decade  of  1870-1880,  New  Mexico  had  increased 
'SO  per  cent ;  Nevada,  47  ;  California,  54  ;  Utah,  66 
Montana,  90;  Oregon,  92  ;  Texas,  94;  Idaho,  117 
Wyoming,  128  ;  Kansas,  173  ;  Washington,  214 
Nebraska,  268;  Arizona,  319.     These  figures  war- 
rant some  ardent  anticipations  for  the  census  of 
1890. 

There  is  no  one  power  in  the  country  which 
carries  civilization  so  fast,  and  disseminates  it  so 
widely,  as  the  railroad.  In  1870  the  Atchison, 
Topeka,  and  Santa  Fe  was  open  as  far  as  Las 
Animas,  in  Colorado,  and  it  was  exceedingly  in- 
teresting to  study  the  effects  of  its  advent.  It 
began  at  once  to  reconstruct  the  plan  of  the  old 
Mexican  town,  with  its  streets  and  lanes  begin- 
ning anywhere  and  ending  nowhere,  in  vanishing 
lines.  Its  only  feature,  evidently  designed,  was 
its  plaza,  or  atomic  centre  and  original  camping- 


THE    UAIUVAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST.        343 

ground,  from  which  the  town  had  been  evolved, 
as  in  a  spider's  web.  The  engineers  and  locomo- 
tive marked  out  tlie  first  straight  line  in  Las 
Animas ;  and  the  ^■illage,  when  we  were  there, 
was  trying  to  make  other  straight  lines,  and  right 
angles,  and  fronts  to  the  houses,  adapted  to  the 
railroad,  the  regenerator.  This  movement  was 
compelling  obvious  and  sometimes  violent  dis- 
tinctions between  front  and  back  yards ;  also  pro- 
ducing some  wooden  houses  among  the  adobes. 
It  does  not  often  happen  that  the  traveller  can 
see  the  sixteenth  and  the  nineteenth  centuries 
so  blended  in  one  village,  and  so  struggling  to- 
gether for  the  mastery.  Chairs,  ploughs,  and  bed- 
steads had  arrived  from  the  States,  and  some 
wheels  which  had  spokes  and  iron  tires.  The 
great  American  time-keeper  had  arrived,  the  loco- 
motive, and  the  natives  were  awkwardly  getting 
used  to  it.  They  had  been  living  on  the  time-table 
introduced  into  New  Spain  by  Cortez  and  Coro- 
nado,  which  was  exact  enough  to  recognize  sunset 
and  sunrii?e.  In  later  excursions  we  found  that 
this  road  had  gone  along  to  Pueblo  and  Santa  Fe 
and  Albuquerque  and  El  Paso,  running  vigorously 
there  into  the  Europe  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  working  revolution  enough  to  haul  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  It  had  introduced  the  kitchen 
from  the  North,  to  the  bewilderment  of  men  and 
women  ;  and  we  shall  not  soon  forget  with  what 
satisfaction  and  idea  of  advancinrj  civilization  a 


344       THE   RAILWAY   SYSTEM   OF  THE   WEST. 

gentleman  at  Albuquerque  showed  ns  through  his 
new  adobe,  ornamented  with  cabinet  furniture, 
upholstery,  and  all  that  and  all  that,  from  the 
States.  He  had,  indeed,  the  white  elephant  of  tlie 
old  Aztec  country.  Tliis  must  not  seem  so  strange 
in  the  rising  man,  for  as  late  as  1846  the  adobe 
palace  in  Santa  ¥6  was  said  to  be  the  only  build- 
ing in  New  Mexico  which  had  window-glass. 

Not  only  has  the  railroad  system  been  the  great, 
if  not  tlie  greatest,  civilizing  means  and  power  in 
our  new  and  wild  country,  but  it  is  the  binding 
power  for  the  union  of  the  States.  It  may  be 
gravely  doubted  whether  sixty  millions,  so  free  in 
all  their  civil  action,  and  so  widely  scattered, 
could  be  kept  willingly  under  one  government 
without  easy  and  speedy  intercourse  through  all 
sections. 

Moreover,  the  railway  system  makes  it  impos- 
sible that  any  one  point  in  the  country  should 
be  fatally  vulnerable  to  the  whole.  Such  a  body 
politic  as  ours  has  no  heel  of  Achilles.  It  was 
before  we  had  railroads  that  Jefferscfn  said  so 
wisely  in  a  letter  to  Livingstone,  at  Paris,  in  1802  : 
"  There  is  on  the  globe  one  single  spot,  the  pos- 
sessor of  v/hich  is  our  natural  and  habitual  enemy. 
It  is  New  Orleans,  through  which  the  produce 
of  three  eighths  of  our  territory  nmst  pass  to  mar- 
ket; and  from  its  fertility  it  will  ere  long  yield 
more  than  half  of  our  whole  produce,  and  contain 
more  than  half  of  our  inhabitants." 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF    THE   WEST.        345 

Jefferson  had  heard  with  regret  and  anxiety 
that  France  had  recovered  her  ancient  Louisiana. 
But  with  railways  radiating  from  that  fertile  val- 
ley to  each  ocean,  the  Lakes  and  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  his  anxieties  would  be  readily  abated, 
since  they  could  concentrate  the  strength  of  tlie 
whole  nation  at  the  most  needy  point.  To  be 
of  one  mind  and  under  one  law,  statesmen,  busi- 
ness men,  scholars,  and  educators  need  to  meet 
and  know  each  other,  see  face  to  face  that  they 
have  one  interest,  and  so  come  to  a  union  in 
purposes  and  plans  and  action.  When  a  country, 
under  one  government,  is  too  large  to  have  na- 
tional men,  it  is  too  large  for  prosperity  and 
perpetuity.  When  John  Bright  was  discussing  the 
question  of  Canadian  fortifications  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  in  18G5,  he  spoke  of  Englishmen 
as  a  people  ''  who  appear  to  have  more  sense 
the  farther  they  go  from  their  own  country."  He 
might  safely  have  extended  that  remark  to  all 
who  speak  English.  Calhoun's  life  worked  in 
three  centres,  —  his  home  in  the  hill  country  of 
South  Carolina,  luxurious  and  aristocratic  Charles- 
ton, and  Washington.  The  first  two  places  were 
all  of  our  country  which  he  could  carry  to  the 
third.  Hence  the  able  provincial  was  unfortu- 
nate in  his  lack  of  travel,  and  as  narrow  as  he  was 
strong  in  his  sectional  movements.  liandolph 
well  states  the  case  of  so  many  radical  and  provin- 
cial extremists  in  the   North  and  in  the  South : 


34G        THE    UAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST. 

"  With  regard  to  tlic  Ijattlo  cry  of  '  State  Eiglit,' 
seven  tenths  of  the  voters  of  the  North  hardly 
know  what  a  Southern  man  means  when  he  pro- 
nounces the  words.  Thus  we  presented  to  the 
world  the  curious  spectacle  of  a  people  so  ignorant 
of  one  another,  so  little  homogeneous,  that  nearly 
all  on  one  side  of  an  imaginary  line  were  willing 
to  risk  their  lives  for  an  idea  which  the  inhabitants 
on  the  other  side  of  the  line  not  only  did  not  en- 
tertain, but  knew  nothing  about." 

It  now  seems  very  strange  to  us  that  Massachu- 
setts should  have  instructed  her  representatives  in 
Congress  in  1813  to  ask  for  the  repeal  of  the  bill 
wliich  admitted  the  State  of  Louisiana  to  the 
Union  the  preceding  year ;  but  Louisiana  then  was 
as  fiir  off  as  China  is  to-day.  The  trip  from  Boston 
to  New  York  required  more  time  and  discomfort 
than  the  one  now  to  San  Francisco.  Travellers  were 
called  at  three  in  tlie  morning,  and  with  a  farthing 
candle  and  horn  lantern  got  under  way,  and  toiled 
over  miserable  roads  till  ten  at  night.  The  use  of  his 
slioulder  or  a  rail  by  the  passenger  to  pass  a  quag- 
mire is  no  original  custom  of  the  Western  prairie. 
Like  so  many  of  their  hardy  virtues  and  practices 
for  hard  places,  our  frontier  men  inherited  them 
from  New  England.  If  the  travellers  were  fairly 
fortunate  they  would  arrive  in  New  York  on  the 
sixth  or  seventh  day  out  of  Boston.^ 

^  Life  of  Josiah   Qiutk^v,  hy  Eiltnund  Quincy,  pp.   47,   48. 
See  also  "Eecollections  of  Samuel  Breck,"  who  says,  "I  have  my- 


THE   RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE    WEST.         347 

On  one  occasion,  and  about  the  time  when  Mas- 
sachusetts was  moving  this  action  on  Louisiana, 
Mr.  Quincy  spent  a  month  in  his  own  carriage  in 
going  from  Boston  to  Washington.  In  those  times 
the  rates  of  public  conveyance  over  the  AUegha- 
nies  was  forty  miles  in  twenty-four  hours,  and  the 
round  trip  between  Cincinnati  and  New  Orleans 
was  about  six  months.  A  Eussian  post  in  Siberia 
is  to-day  no  farther  from  Massachusetts  than 
Louisiana  then  was.  As  to  travel  in  earlier  days 
a  friend  gives  me  this  interesting  note.  On  the 
first  of  May,  1819,  a  near  relative  of  his  i'amily, 
Mr.  John  Shackford,  left  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  for 
St.  Louis,  Mo.  "He  had  a  big  strong  stage  wagon, 
with  three  seats  and  an  open  front,  and  a  pair  of 
horses.  The  load  consisted  of  himself  and  wife, 
an  adult  female  friend,  with  four  children,  from 
two  to  eight  years  of  age,  and  several  trunks. 
The  route  was  direct  as  far  as  practicable  across 
the  country  to  St.  Louis,  but  subject  to  many  de- 
la3's,  with  so  heavy  a  load,  bad  roads,  and  a  sin- 
gle team,  to  make  the  entire  distance.  The  actual 
travel  fell  between  sixty  and  seventy  days." 

It  was  this  distance  and  inaccessibility  of  the 
Southwest  from  New  England,  which  make  some 
views  and  remarks  of  Eastern  men  in  those  earlier 

self  been  nine  days  going  from  New  York  to  Boston  "  (pp.  90-99, 
100-103,  271-273).  And  more  generally  on  travel  in  those  times, 
see  "Letters  of  Aaron  Burr  to  his  Wife,"  and  "  Life  of  Benedict 
Arnold." 


348        THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OV   THE    WEST. 

days  surprising  and  amusing,  and  always  pardon- 
able. 

Only  railroads  were  needed  to  convert  such 
fears  into  glowing  visions,  which  to-day  are  real- 
ized in  grand  national  facts.  The  Baltimore  and 
Ohio,  the  Louisville  and  Cincinnati,  the  Chicago, 
St.  Louis,  and  New  Orleans,  —  these  or  other  roads 
have  put  Louisiana  and  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 
sippi and  the  Missouri  nearer  to  Mr.  Quincy's  old 
home  than  New  York  was  when  he  so  eloquently 
expressed  his  anxieties.  The  revolution  in  travel 
and  the  condensation  of  the  country  by  steam 
have  been  wonderful,  and  beyond  the  comprehen- 
sion of  business  men  born  since  those  days ;  and 
the  opposition  to  the  revolution  and  condensation 
was  equally  wonderful.  Of  the  scheme  for  the 
Boston  and  Albany  Railroad,  the  "  Boston  Courier" 
says  :  "  A  project  which  every  one  knows,  who 
knows  the  simplest  rules  of  arithmetic,  to  be 
impracticable."  And  as  late  as  1842  the  town  of 
Dorchester  voted :  "  That  our  representatives  be 
instructed  to  use  their  utmost  endeavors  to  pre- 
vent, if  possible,  so  great  a  calamity  to  our  town 
as  must  be  the  location  of  any  railroad  through 
it;  and  if  that  cannot  be  prevented,  to 'diminish 
this  calamity  as  far  as  possible,"  by  locating  it 
along  the  marsh. 

Webster,  when  speaking  in  the  Senate  in  1838, 
on  Pre-emption,  said  :  "  Of  the  Southwest  I  know 
but  little."     When,  however,  nine  years  later,  he 


THE   RAILWAY   SYSTEM   OF   THE    WEST.        349 

was  making  remarks  at  the  New  England  dinner 
in  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  he  expressed  these 
very  excellent  views  :  "  I  concur  with  you  cor- 
dially, gentlemen,  in  the  sentiment  that  mutual 
intercourse  strengthens  mutual  regard,  and  that 
the  more  citizens  of  different  parts  of  the  country 
see  one  another,  the  more  will  asperities  be  soft- 
ened and  differences  reconciled."  ^ 

It  is  to  be  deeply  regretted  that  such  inter- 
course between  the  North  and  the  Soutli  could 
not  have  been  had  all  througli  the  first  half  of 
the  present  century.  Possibly  some  other  inter- 
course would  have  had  its  asperities  softened  if 
not  wholly  prevented  by  it.  In  the  introduction 
to  Webster's  "  Southern  Tour,"  1847,  the  editor 
remarks  that  "  the  receptions  were  rendered  pecu- 
liarly interesting  by  the  unusual  nature  of  such 
an  occurrence  as  the  visit  of  a  highly  distinguished 
New  England  statesman  to  the  South."  That  lack 
of  intercourse  was  no  good  omen  for  the  interests 
of  either  section,  or  of  the  whole  country.  Yet 
the  breadth  of  domain  and  the  infelicities  and 
sometimes  impossibilities  of  travel  kept  the  North 
and  the  South  and  the  East  and  the  West  in  great 
ignorance  of  one  another.  Happily  for  the  im- 
mensity of  the  public  domain  those  obstacles  are 
now  removed,  and  one  may  reach  any  of  the  great 
centres  between  the  two  oceans,  and  the  Canadian 
and  Mexican  borders,  in  six  or  eight  days.     The 

1  W^ebster's  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  376. 


350        TlIK    li.ULWAY    SYSTEM    OF   TIIK   WEST. 

liannoiiy  and  strengthening  and  prosperity  of  the 
T^nioii  lie  in  this  speedy  and  easy  travel  between 
all  parts  of  it. 

The  outlook  for  the  United  States  would  be 
better,  let  it  be  added,  if  there  M'ere  more  home 
travel  by  her  citizens.  Scholarly  pursuits  of 
ancient  and  foreign  history,  and  pleasurable  ram- 
bles in  foreign  climes,  add  an  estimable  charm  to 
companionship  and  general  society ;  while  states- 
manship and  serviceable  citizenship  call  for  the 
ornament  and  the  strength  which  come  from 
personal  knowledge  of  one's  own  land.  The 
American  exchange  at  London  reports  astonishing 
expenditures  in  Europe  by  Americans.  Basing 
the  estimate  on  letters  of  credit  to  European 
banking-houses,  the  number  of  travellers  from 
America  has  been  marked  as  high  as  sixty  thou- 
sand in  one  year,  and  their  expenditure  as  high 
as  one  hundred  and  eighty  million  dollars,  — 
probably  an  overestimate. 

An  extract  will  not  be  out  of  place  here  from 
a  letter  of  Washington  to  the  tutor  of  young 
Curtis,  Washington's  step-son,  when  the  question 
of  foreign  travel  by  him  was  under  consideration : 
"  It  is  to  be  expected  that  every  man  who  travels 
with  a  view  of  observing  the  laws  and  customs  of 
other  countries  should  be  able  to  give  some  de- 
scription of  the  situation  and  government  of  his 
own."  1 

1  *[rving's  Life  of  Washington,  vol.  i.  p.  367. 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF    THE    AYEST.         351 

This  sixty  thousand  might  perhaps  furiiisli  a 
select  audience  of  such  of  their  number  as  have 
not  been  a  thousand  miles  from  home  in  their 
own  country,  to  hear  what  the  liev.  Dr.  Bushnell 
says :  "  The  sooner  we  have  railroads  and  tele- 
graphs spinning  into  the  wilderness,  and  setting 
the  remotest  hamlet  in  connection  and  close  prox- 
imity with  the  East,  the  more  certain  it  is  that 
light,  good  manners,  and  Christian  civilization 
will   become   universally  diffused."  ^ 

It  is  thought  and  hoped  that  the  railroads  of 
the  country  will  have  no  little  to  do  in  harmoniz- 
ing the  theological  sects,  and  so  in  economizing 
the  religious  and  financial  forces  of  the  church  in 
the  United  States.  The  religious  w^ars  by  the 
sword  in  olden  times,  and  those  by  the  pen  then 
and  now,  have  come  more  from  the  cloister  and 
priest  and  divine,  than  from  the  wide  observa- 
tions of  life,  or  from  diverse  causes  among  ordi- 
■  nary  and  good  people.  Men,  religious,  so-called, 
have  quietly,  and  in  the  solitariness  of  study,  run 
their  thouglits  along  in  the  lines  of  musty  parch- 
ment or  of  letter-press,  and  have  framed  and  mas- 
tered sentences,  and  then  marshalled  them  into 
polemical  theology,  and  so  led  to  the  organization 
of  denominational  skirmishers.  Hence  the  wars 
of  the  phrases  and  of  the  paragraphs,  which  waste 
so  much  good  feeling  and  strength  and  sacred 
money,    ink,   paper,    and   type.      These   struggles 

1  Barliarism  the  First  Danger,  1847. 


352        THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST. 

come  on  tlie  l)attlefield.s  of  belief,  not  of  life.  If 
reverend  and  cloi^-ter  and  lectnre-rooin  dogmatists 
had  moved  freely  and  freqnently  and  observingly 
among  the  people  who  arc  living  a  Christian  and 
exemplary  life,  they  could  not  have  organized  the 
sects  from  any  differences  in  their  living.  It  is 
a  catechism,  and  not  difference  in  Christian  life, 
which  starts  theological  campaigns,  and  makes 
great  church  expenses  for  holy  wars.  Travel 
among  other  religious  bodies,  and  candid,  domestic 
observation  on  their  religious  life,  broadens  and 
softens  the  local  and  the  i)rovincial  religion. 
This  travel  and  these  observations  are  apt  to  slip 
one's  theological  phrases  and  devout  mannerisms 
out  of  the  quotation  marks  in  wliicii  one  has  re- 
ceived tliem  by  inheritance.  He  is  exposed  in 
travel  to  doing  his  own  thinking  and  expressing, 
which  is  always  dangerous  to  religious  sects  cre- 
ated by  phrase-makers  among  people  who  are 
living  the  same  Christian  life. 

We  therefore  give  the  hand'  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship to  the  locomotive  as  a  peacemaker  between 
religious  denominations,  in  harmonizing  and  econ- 
omizing Christian  forces.  It  brings  new  currents 
of  thought  to  the  cloister,  hangs  new  pictures  of 
holy  faiths  and  life  in  the  galleries  of  the  old 
masters,  and  reveals  a  Christian  kinsliip  broader 
than  any  holy  league  and  covenant.  The  railroad 
does  vastly  more  than  to  work  for  commerce  and 
dividends  and  civilization.     It  is  an  evauiielist. 


THE    RAILWAY    SYSTEM    OF   THE   WEST.        353 

California  and  Oregon  and  Washington  would 
have  been  an  impossibility  without  our  Pacific 
railways.  A  quick  circuit  of  thought  and  feeling 
between  the  old  Atlantic  and  the  new  Pacific 
homes  was  a  demand  as  inexorable  as  a  necessity 
of  nature.  The  new  West,  to  thrive,  must  have 
the  footsteps  and  voices  of  the  old  homestead 
as  next-door  neighbors.  The  early  French  and 
Spanish  colonies  in  America  pined  and  dwarfed 
by  isolation;  and  those  splendid  Dutch  and  Chris- 
tian farmers  contemporary  with  the  oSTew  England 
fathers  degenerated  into  the  present  semi-civilized 
Boers  of  South  Africa,  because  they  lost  contact 
and  close  communication  with  the  fatherland. 
With  education  and  Christianity  coming  tardily  to 
the  rescue  of  cities  and  villages  springing  from 
gold  mines,  the  railway  is  their  greatest  hope  for 
law,  order,  equity,  'morality,  and  more  than  all 
for  the  recognized  and  sanctified  home  of  marriage, 
without  which  there  is  no  civilization.  For  all 
the  high  and  noble  ends  of  society  a  bonnet  is 
more  than  a  gold  mine. 

The  social  and  moral  and  religious  benefits  of 
our  flowing  together  are  already  happily  obvious 
in  a  thousand  modern  ways  of  union  where  theol- 
ogy gives  place  to  religion,  and  living  is  more 
than  believing.  A  railroad  between  Jerusalem 
and  Samaria  would  be  a  wonderful  aid  for  the 
passengers  and  freiglit  in  the  great  business  and 
commerce  of  godliness.  Voltaire  puts  the  point 
23 


334        THE    Il.VlLWAY    SYSTEM    UF   THE    WEST. 

well  in  his  definition  of  an  educated  man,— and 
we  would  include  religious,  —  as  "one  who  is  not 
satisfied  to  survey  the  universe  from  his  parish 
belfry."  We  assent  to  the  text  of  this  chapter  : 
"  If  there  were  to  be  no  railroads,  it  was,  on  the 
whole,  rather  an  impertinence  in  Columbus  to 
discover  America." 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       355 


CHAPTEK   XIII. 

THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE   FUTURE. 

IN"  1849  the  Sons  of  New  Hampshire  held  a  great 
festival  in  Boston.  Of  course,  Webster  was  the 
orator.  Eeferring  to  our  country,  in  its  present 
attainments  and  prospects,  he  said  :  "  With  regard 
to  this  country,  there  is  no  poetry  like  the  poetry 
of  events,  and  all  the  prophecies  lag  behind  the  ful- 
fihnent."  And  rounding  up  a  glowing  anticipation 
of  our  future,  he  remarked :  "  The  prophecies  and 
the  poets  are  with  us."  These  are  not  merely  rhe- 
torical ornament,  introduced  to  grace  an  oration, 
but  they  set  forth  a  grand  fact  in  our  history.  The 
auguries  of  a  growing  and  grand  future  for  the 
United  States  need  not  be  regarded  as  dreamy  and 
visionary.  They  are  more  like  logical  deductions 
from  our  history,  where  the  reasoning  compels  us  to 
anticipate.  These  prophecies  of  coming  empire  are 
not  so  much  drawn  from  visions  of  a  future,  which 
a  warm  imagination  has  peopled,  as  from  a  past, 
which  the  energies  of  a  young  nation  have  filled 
up  with  seminal  and  germinant  facts.  In  such 
case  what  we  call  prophecy  is  akin  to  inference. 
So  Webster,  in  his  address  delivered  at  the  laying 


356  THE   E.MriRE   OF   THE    FUTURE. 

of  the  corner-stone  of  the  addition  to  the  Capitol, 
July  4,  1851,  called  the  noted  prophecy  of  Bishop 
Berkeley  "  the  result  of  long  foresight  and  uncom- 
mon sagacity."  One  line  will  bring  the  prophetic 
poem  to  mind  :  — 

"  Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  wa}^" 

Seeing  room  for  continued  growth,  and  no  fair  rea- 
son for  discontinuance,  the  assumption  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  previous  order  is  not  so  much  the 
M'ork  of  a  seer  as  of  a  philosopher.  Milton  says  it 
well :  — 

"That  old  experience  does  attain 
To  something  like  prophetic  strain." 

In  this  chapter,  therefore,  on  The  Empire  of 
the  Future,  attention  is  not  called  to  poetic  and 
visionary  indulgences  of  enthusiastic  men,  but 
rather  to  the  reflections  and  inferences  and  expec- 
tations of  cool,  studious,  and  reasoning  men.  The 
authors  whom  I  am  about  to  quote,  excepting  a 
cluster  of  poets,  had  been  accustomed  to  pay 
much  attention  to  the  established  order  of  things, 
where  cause  and  eff'ect  commonly  warrant  the 
continuance  of  a  long  established  order.  A  proph- 
ecy, strictly  speaking,  is  of  divine  inspiration,  and 
totally  above  human  and  logical  deduction.  These 
opinions  or  judgments,  which  we  call  prophecies 
by  accommodation,  are  as  when  one  studies  care- 
fully the  head-waters  of  the  Missouri  and  Missis- 
sippi, and  then  says,  there  must  somewhere  and 


ii 


THE   EMPIRE    OF   THE    FUTUKE.  357 

sometime  be  a  bay  or  gran'cl  outlet,  such  as  we  call 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

Some  earliest  poets  on  the  New  World,  quite 
as  indetlnite  in  their  predictions  as  was  the  New 
World,  geographically,  when  they  wrote,  we  pass 
along  in  a  cluster.  It  was  in  1595  when  Chap- 
man, the  Greek  scholar,  foretold  coming  empire 
in  America,  after  this  strain :  — 

"  Guicana,  whose  rich  feet  are  mines  of  gold, 
Stands  on  her  tiptoe  at  fair  England  looking. 


And  there  do  palaces  and  temples  rise 

Out  of  the  earth,  and  kiss  th'  enamour'd  skies, 

Where  new  Britannia  humbly  kneels  to  Heaven." 

Samuel  Daniel,  poet-laureate  to  Elizabeth,  proud 
of  his  mother  tongue,  and  ambitious  to  hear  it  on 
as  many  human  lips  as  possible,  thus  utters  his 
prophetic  anxieties :  — 

"Who  in  time  knows  whither  we  may  vent 
The  treasures  of  our  tongue  ?    To  what  strange  shores 
This  gain  of  our  best  glory  shall  be  sent, 
T'  enrich  unknowing  nations  with  our  stores  ? 
What  worlds  in  the  yet  unformed  Occident 
May  'come  refined  with  th'  accents  that  are  ours  ■* 
Or  who  can  tell  for  what  great  work  in  hand 
The  greatness  of  our  style  is  now  ordained  ? "  ^ 

Contemporary  with  Milton,  but  the  opposite  in 
the  warui  politics  of  that  day,  and  partaking  of  the 

1  Anderson's  British  Poets  (Musophilu?),  vol.  iv.  p.  217. 


358  THE   EMI'IRE   OF   THE   FUTURE. 

mixed  patronage  and  neglect  of  Charles  II.,  was 
Cowley,  the  botanical  poet.  In  1G67  he  set  forth, 
in  Latin,  his  "  History  of  Plants,"  a  poem  in  six 
books.  He  thus  prophetically  addresses  the  New 
World:  — 

"Meanwhile  your  rising  glory  you  .shall  view  : 
Wit,  learning,  virtue,  discipline  of  war, 
Shall  for  protection  to  your  world  repair, 
And  fix  a  long  illustrious  empire  there. 
Your  native  gold  (I  would  not  have  it  so, 
But  fear  th'  event)  in  time  will  follow  too. 
Oh,  .should  that  fatal  prize  return  once  more, 
'T  will  hurt  your  country,  as  it  did  before  !  "  i 

Sir  Thomas  Browne,  born  two  years  before  the 
planting  of  the  Jamestown  Colony,  ranks  high 
among  the  leading  thinkers  of  his  times.  He  pre- 
sumed to  indulge  in  prophesying  under  the  title 
itself:  "A  Prophecy  concerning  the  Future  State 
of  Several  Nations ; "  and  Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  Life 
of  Sir  Thomas,  says  that  he  makes  the  expectation 
plain  in  his  Prophecy  "  that  America  will  be  the 
seat  of  the  fifth  empire."  The  Prophecy  is  an 
interpretation  or  paraphrase  of  some  verses  which 
the  author  professes  to  have  received  from  a  friend. 
Possibly  the  text  is  of  his  own  inspiration,  that  he 
might  have  something  conveniently  arranged  on 
which  to  spread  out  his  own  expectations.  Com- 
menting on  the  verses,  he  says  that  when  New 
England  has  so  increased  "  that  the  neighboring 

1  Anderson's  British  Poets  (Cowlej^),  vol.  v.  p.  373. 


THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE   FUTURE.  359 

country  will  not  contain  them,  they  will  range  still 
farther,  and  be  able  in  time  to  set  forth  great 
armies,  seek  for  new  possessions,  or  make  consid- 
erable and  conjoined  migrations,  and  may  not  im- 
probably erect  new  dominions  in  places  not  yet 
thought  of,  and  yet  for  some  centuries  beyond 
their  power  or  ambition."  Enlarging  and  pro- 
longing his  vision  to  something  of  a  continental 
scope,  he  proceeds  to  predict  that  "  when  America 
shall  be  better  civilized,  new  policied,  and  divided 
between  great  princes,  it  may  come  to  pass  that 
they  will  no  longer  sutfer  their  treasure  of  gold 
and  silver  to  be  sent  out  to  maintain  the  luxury 
of  Europe  and  other  ports,  but  rather  employ  it  to 
their  own  advantages,  in  great  exploits  and  under- 
takings, magnificent  structures,  wars,  or  expeditions 
of  their  own.  .  .  .  When  America  shall  be  so  well 
peopled,  civilized,  and  divided  into  kingdoms,  they 
are  like  to  have  so  little  regard  for  their  originals 
as  to  acknowledge  no  subjection  unto  them  :  they 
may  also  have  a  distinct  commerce  themselves,  or 
but  independently  with  those  of  Europe."  ^ 

Very  near  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century 
(1697)  Samuel  Sewall  wrote  on  the  New  Heaven 
and  the  New  Earth.  He  was  a  Judge  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  Massachusetts,  and  at  one  time 
Chief  Justice.  He  was  of  the  court  which  con- 
demned the  witches,  from  which  delusion  he 
recovered,  but  never  from  the  sorrow  for  their  con- 

^  Sir  Thomas  Browne  ;  ^Vorks,  vol.  iv.  pp.  231-238. 


360       THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

demnation.  Of  tlie  New  England  Colonies  he 
says :  "  I  can't  but  hope  that  the  plantation  has 
gained  a  very  strong  Crasis  ;  and  tiiat  it  will  not  be 
of  one  or  two  or  three  centuries  only,  but  by  the 
Grace  of  God  it  will  be  very  long  lasting.  ...  As 
one  that  has  been  born  or  has  lived  in  America 
more  than  tlireescore  years,  it  may  be  pardonable 
for  him  to  ask,  Why  may  not  that  be  tlie  place  of 
New  Jerusalem  ?  .  .  .  Mr.  Eliot  was  wont  to  say 
the  New  English  Churches  are  a  preface  to  the 
New  Heavens."  ^ 

About  the  year  1726  Bishop  Berkeley  was  work- 
ing over  plans  for  a  college  in  An:ierica.  The  study 
given  to  such  a  purpose  and  plan  would  naturally 
lead  him  to  estimate  the  importance  of  the  Colo- 
nies here,  and  to  forecast  their  growth  and  ulti- 
mate place  and  power  among  the  nations.  Found- 
ing colleges  is  apt  to  lead  one  to  those  broad  and 
long  plans  which  run  down  the  ages,  and  so  endue 
one  with  forecast  and  prophecy.  The  Bishop's 
"  Proposal "  for  his  Indian  College  is  a  chapter 
of  exceeding  interest  on  "  the  Indian  Question."  ^ 
With  an  ardent  and  glowing  mind  he  anticipated 
a  magnificent  future  for  the  plantation  in  the  New 
World,  and  turned  prophet  in  certain  celebrated 
stanzas,  of  which  this  is  the  last :  — 

1  New  Heaven  and  New  Earth.  Second  Edition.  Boston, 
1727.     pp.  1,  2. 

2  The  Works  of  George  Berkeley,  D.D.  Eraser's  Edition. 
Oxford,  1871.     vol.  iii.  pp.  2ir)-231. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       361 

"  Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way  ; 
The  first  four  acts  ah-eady  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day  ; 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last."  i 

One  George  Webb,  too  much  of  a  poet  to  be  a 
scholar,  quitted  Oxford  for  the  wilds  of  America, 
and  in  1728  gave  forth  a  couplet,  for  the  preser- 
vation of  which,  or  at  least  the  publication,  the 
world  seems  to  be  indebted  to  Franklin :  - 

"  Rome  shall  lament  her  ancient  fame  declined, 
And  Philadelphia  be  the  Athens  of  mankind." 

This  was  evidently  written  in  colonial  days  and 
on  the  border,  for  it  has  something  of  the  poetic 
frenzy  of  the  frontier,  in  cities  which  start  like 
Jonah's  gourd,  but  grow  and  endure  like  the  oaks 
of  Baslian,  and  promise  to  live  like  the  cedars 
of  Lebanon.  And  in  the  speech  already  quoted, 
Webster  makes  us  familiar  with  another  inspiring 
couplet  from  colonial  days,  all  the  more  inspiring 
from  his  own  rich  setting  of  it :  — 

"  In  other  lands  another  Britain  see. 
And  what  thou  art  Ameiica  shall  be." 

It  is  quite  a  variation  in  our  line  of  prophets 
from  an  Irish  prelate  and  Ehode  Island  pilgrim 
to  a  French  reformer.  Marquis  d'Argenson  was 
of  the  Court  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  the  companion  of 
Richelieu,  Voltaire,  and  Eousseau.  The  profound 
scholar  in  statesmanship,  who  wrote  elaborately  on 

1  Berkeley's  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  232. 


362  THE    EMHRE   OF   THE   FUTURE. 

the  political  reconstruction  of  nations,  especially 
France  and  Italy,  sought  the  renaissance  of  Greece 
and  the  suppression  of  barbaric  power  in  northern 
Africa  by  the  union  of  the  civilized  powers  of  Eu- 
rope in  a  Christian  republic,  and  who  correctly 
anticipated  the  decay  of  the  Turkisli  Empire,  would 
not  be  likely  to  leave  America  out  of  the  scope  of 
his  vision.  When  he  spoke,  however,  for  the  New 
World,  some  time  between  1740  and  1750,  France 
was  the  greatest  claimant  in  North  America; 
but  within  a  decade  or  so  of  years  slie  lost  all 
her  territory  in  it  save  three  petty  islands  off 
Newfoundland. 

After  the  following  strain  he  utters  his  oracles, 
when  he  turns  his  face  westward,  in  the  course  of 
Berkeley's  Empire  :  "  Another  great  event  to  arrive 
upon  the  round  earth  is  this  :  The  English  have  in 
North  America  domains  great,  strong,  rich,  well- 
regulated.  There  are  in  New  England  a  parlia- 
ment, governors,  troops,  white  inhabitants  in 
abundance,  riches  and  mariners,  which  is  worse. 
I  say  that  some  bright  morning  these  dominations 
can  separate  from  England,  rise  and  erect  them- 
selves into  an  independent  republic.  AVhat  will 
happen  from  this  ?  Do  people  think  of  this  ?  A 
country  well  regulated  by  the  arts  of  Europe,  in 
condition  to  communicate  with  it  by  the  present 
perfection  of  its  marine,  and  which  by  this  will 
appropriate  our  arts  in  proportion  to  their  improve- 
ment.    Patience  !     Such  a  country  in  several  ages 


THE   EMPIRE    OF   THE   FUTUKE.  363 

will  make  great  progress  in  population  and  in 
politeness  [civilization] ;  such  a  country  will  ren- 
der itself  in  a  short  time  master  of  America,  and 
especially  of  the  gold  mines.  .  .  .  And  you  will 
then  see  how  the  earth  will  be  beautiful !  What 
culture  !  What  new  arts  and  new  sciences  !  What 
safety  for  commerce  !  Navigation  will  precipitate 
all  the  people  toward  each  other.  A  day  will 
come  when  one  will  go  in  a  populous  and  w"ell- 
regulated  city  of  California  as  one  goes  in  the 
stage-coach  of  Meaux."  He  was  prepared  to 
say  these  things  after  he  had  thoughtfully,  and 
by  geographical  comparisons,  made  the  remark, 
"What  a  small  corner  Europe  has  on  the  round 
earth  ! " 

Here  are  several  most  wonderful  facts  published 
in  advance  of  their  existence.  The  "  great  event " 
came  in  two  instalments,  seventeen  years  apart,  — 
the  Plains  of  Abraham  and  Bunker  Hill ;  "  an  in- 
dependent republic  "  some  bright  morning  for  the 
nations  ;  "  the  gold  mines  "  in  the  hands  of  the 
new-born  nation;  and  a  San  Francisco,  suggestive 
of  the  comforts  of  old  Meaux.  The  "  several  ages  " 
of  our  prophet  are  run  through  in  less  than  a  hun- 
dred years.  Before  the  round  century  was  through, 
the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  had  assigned  the 
gold-fields  of  the  Pacific  to  the  independent  repub- 
lic, and  San  Francisco  was  founded  for  something 
better  than  the  stage-coach  of  Meaux.  Why 
exclude  the  other  prediction  from  the  prophetic 


364  THE    EMPIRE   OF   THE    FUTURE. 

chapter  ?  "  Such  a  country  will  reuder  itself  in 
a  short  time  master  of  America."  ^ 

Turgot  followed  close  upon  D'Argenson,  and 
closed  a  career  of  reform  as  a  statesman  in  advance 
of  his  age,  two  years  before  our  era  of  peace  opened 
with  Great  Britain.  As  early  as  1750  he  foresaw 
and  announced  the  independence  of  the  English 
colonies  in  America,  and  twenty  years  later  he  de- 
clared with  much  satisfaction  that  that  separation 
"will  be  followed  soon  by  that  of  all  America  from 
Europe."  Of  the  young  republic,  as  yet  only  in 
vision,  he  said :  "  It  is  the  hope  of  the  human  race. 
It  can  become  its  model.  ...  It  must  give  the 
example  of  political  liberty,  of  religious  liberty,  of 
commercial  and  industrial  liberty."  ^ 

Of  course  John  Adams  speaks  to  the  point  in 
hand  often  and  enthusiastically,  yet  always  as  a 
broad  statesman.  He  opened  his  prophecies  when 
only  twenty  years  of  age,  and  a  schoolmaster. 
Eeferring  to  the  arrival  of  the  early  colonists  in 
the  New  World  he  remarked :  "  Perhaps  this  ap- 
parently trivial  incident  may  transfer  the  great 
seat  of  empire  to  America.  It  looks  likely  to  me."^ 
This  was  in  1755.  Ten  years  later  the  possibility 
has  grown  with  his  knowledge  and  patriotism  and 
fervor :    "  I  always  considered   the  settlement-  of 

^  Prophetic  Voices  concerning  America.     By  Charles  Sum- 
ner.    Boston,  1874.     pp.  32-38. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  45. 
^  Works  of  John  Adams,  vol.  i.  p.  23. 


THE  empirp:  of  the  future.  365 

America  with  reverence,  as  the  opening  of  a  grand 
scheme  and  design  in  Providence  for  the  illumi- 
nation of  the  ignorant  and  the  emancipation  of 
the  slavish  part  of  mankind  all  over  the  earth."  ^ 
And  in  1780 :  "  America  is  most  undoubtedly 
capable  of  being  the  most  independent  country 
upon  earth.  .  .  .  Could  undoubtedly  maintain  a 
regular  army  of  twenty  thousand  men  forever."  ^ 

When  Minister  to  England,  he  wrote  his  "  De- 
fence of  the  American  Constitutions,"  1787,  and  in 
it  says  that  the  governments  therein  set  forth 
"  are  destined  to  spread  over  the  northern  part  of 
that  whole  quarter  of  the  globe,"  ^  —  embracing 
the  entire  northern  continent.  "  A  prospect  into 
futurity  in  America  is  like  contemplating  the 
heavens  through  the  telescope  of  Herschel.  Ob- 
jects stupendous  in  their  magnitudes  and  mo- 
tions strike  us  from  all  quarters  and  fill  us  with 
amazement."  * 

In  a  letter  written  in  1818  his  heart  is  still 
more  aglow  with  his  visions :  "  The  American 
Revolution  was  not  a  common  event.  Its  effects 
and  consequences  have  already  been  awful  over  a 
great  part  of  the  globe.  And  when  and  where 
are  they  to  cease  ?  "  ^ 

In  1759-60  an  intelligent  English  gentleman 
made   travels  through  the  middle  settlements  of 

1  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  66.  ^  Ibid.,  vol.  iv.  p.  293. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  vii.  pp.  275,  276.  *  Ibid.,  vol.  vi.  p.  218. 

*  Ibid.,  vol.  X.   p.  282. 


366  THE  E.Mriitt:  ok  the  future. 

North  America,  and  he  observes :  "  Every  one  is 
h)oking  forward  with  eager  and  impatient  expec- 
tation to  that  destined  moment  when  America  is 
to  give  law  to  the  rest  of  the  worhl."  ^ 

It  was  the  Abb6  Raynal  who  offered  a  prize  of 
twelve  hundred  francs  for  tlie  best  essay  on  the 
question,  Has  the  discovery  of  America  been  hurt- 
ful or  useful  to  the  human  family?  The  Acad- 
emy of  Lyons  was  to  be  umpire.  The  Abbd,  in 
one  of  his  works  published  in  1770,  offers  his 
own  essay  on  the  question.  From  his  standpoint, 
as  a  student  of  America,  a  prediction  in  the  con- 
cluding book  of  his  works  will  have  its  force : 
"  A  new  universe  will  proceed  from  their  hands 
[America's]  for  the  glory  and  happiness  of  hu- 
manity." 

Hugh  Henry  Brackinridge,  a  native  of  Scotland, 
was  graduated  at  Princeton  College  in  1771,  and 
delivered  for  a  Commencement  poem  The  Rising 
Glory  of  America.  In  it  occur  lines  quite  in  the 
tone  and  manner  of  an  old  Roman  vates :  — 

"  New  States,  new  Empires,  and  a  line  of  Kings, 
High  raised  in  glory,  cities,  palaces, 
Fair  domes  on  each  long  bay,  sea,  shore,  or  stream. 
.  .  .  the  slow-paced  caravans  return 
O'er  many  a  realm  from  the  Pacific  shore. 

'T  is  but  the  morning  of  the  world  with  us, 
And  Science  yet  but  sheds  her  orient  rays  ; 
I  see  the  age,  the  hapj)y  age  roll  on. 

1  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  North  America,  1809-11.     By 
John  Biirnaby.     London,  1817.     p.  115. 


THE    EMPIRE   OF    THE    FUTURE,  367 

Hail,  happy  land, 
The  seat  of  Empire,  the  abode  of  Kings, 
The  final  stage,  where  Truth  shall  introduce 
Renowned  characters,  and  glorious  works  of  art, 
Which  not  the  ravages  of  Time  shall  waste, 
Till  he  himself  has  run  his  long  career." 

A  most  remarkable  address  was  delivered  in 
1773,  in  London,  by  Jonathan  Shipley,  Bishop  of 
St.  Asaph.  Tlie  time  will  indicate  that  the  Min- 
istry were  then  making  strenuous  efforts  to  hold 
the  Colonies  in  America  in  a  vassalage  to  the 
Crown,  humiliating  to  all  Englishmen ;  and  the 
fidelity  to  convictions  and  the  boldness  shown  in 
the  address  are  quite  of  the  quality  of  the  real 
prophets. 

"  When  we  see  many  great  and  powerful  causes 
constantly  at  work,  we  cannot  doubt  of  their  pro- 
ducing proportionable  effects.  .  .  .  They  [the  Colo- 
nie.s]  seem  to  have  been  intended  as  a  solitary 
experiment  to  instruct  the  world  to  what  improve- 
ments and  happiness  mankind  will  naturally  at- 
tain when  they  are  suffered  to  use  their  own 
prudence  in  search  of  their  own  interest. 

"  The  Colonies  in  North  America  have  not  only 
taken  root  and  acquired  strength,  but  seem  has- 
tening with  an  accelerated  progress  to  such  a  pow- 
erful state  as  may  introduce  a  new  and  important 
change  in  human  affairs.  Descended  from  ances- 
tors of  the  most  improved  and  enlightened  parts 
of  the  Old  World,  they  receive,  as  it  were  by  in- 
heritance, all  the  improvements  and  discoveries  of 


;;G8  TIIK    i:.Ml'Il!K    OK    THE    Fl'TURE. 

lliuir  muLlier  ctmnlry.  Aucl  it  liappens  fortunately 
for  them  to  commence  their  flourishing  State  at  a 
time  when  the  human  understanding  has  attained 
to  the  free  use  of  its  powers,  and  has  learned  to 
act  with  vigor  and  certainty.  .  .  .  The  vast  conti- 
nent itself,  over  which  they  are  gradually  spread- 
ing, may  be  considered  as  a  treasure,  yet  untouched, 
of  natural  productions,  that  shall  hereal"ter  afford 
ample  matter  for  commerce  and  contemplation. 
...  It  is  didicult  even  to  imagine  to  what  height 
of  improvement  their  discoveries  may  extend. 
And  perhaps  they  may  make  as  considerable  ad- 
vances in  the  arts  of  civil  government  and  the 
conduct  of  life.  .  .  .  But  must  they  rest  here,  as 
in  the  utmost  effort  of  human  genius  ?  .  .  .  The 
diversity  of  new  scenes  and  situations,  which  so 
many  growing  States  must  necessarily  pass  through, 
may  introduce  changes  in  the  fluctuating  opinions 
and  manners  of  men  which  we  can  form  no  con- 
ception of;  and  not  only  the  gracious  disposition 
of  Providence,  but  the  visible  preparation  of  causes, 
seems  to  indicate  strong  tendencies  towards  a  gen- 
eral improvement.  ...  To  wliatever  limits  the 
populations  of  our  Colonies,  whatever  States  and 
Kingdoms  they  may  form,  through  all  the  progress 
of  their  fortunes  and  prosperity,  the  labors  of  this 
Society  will  probably  continue  to  operate  with  an 
increasing  influence."  ^ 

1  A  Sermon  pi'eached  before  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,   Feb.   19,  1773,   by  the   Kight 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       369 

Horace  Walpole,  son  of  the  eminent  Prime  Min- 
ister, Sir  Robert,  was  a  free  knight  on  any  field 
where  justice  and  liberty  were  put  on  tlie  defen- 
sive. With  visor  up  he  carried  a  long  lance,  and 
was  found,  of  choice,  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight. 
•  For  the  Colonies  he  was  friendly,  it  might  be  said 
ardent,  l)ut  tliat  his  ardor  in  their  defence  partook 
of  the  ardor  of  assault  on  the  Ministry.  Of  the 
destruction  of  the  tea  in  Boston  Harbor  he  has 
this  chatty  remark  in  one  of  his  letters :  "There  is 
an  ostrich  egg  laid  in  America,  where  the  Bosto- 
nians  have  canted  three  hundred  chests  of  tea  into 
the  ocean,  for  they  will  not  drink  tea  with  our 
Parliament.  .  .  .  Lord  Chatham  talked  of  conquer- 
ing America  in  Germany.  I  believe  England  will 
be  conquered  some  day  in  New  England  or  Ben- 
gal." ^  Nearly  four  years  later,  Dec.  11,  1777,  he 
wrote  to  the  Countess  of  Ossory :  "  Well,  Madam, 
as  I  told  Lord  Ossory  t'  other  day,  I  am  satisfied. 
Old  England  is  safe,  that  is,  America,  whither  the 
true  English  retired  under  Charles  I.  This  is  Nova 
Scotia,  and  I  care  not  what  becomes  of  it.  ...  I 
am  at  last  not  sorry  you  have  no  son,  and  your 
daughters  I  hope  will  be  married  to  Americans, 
and  not  in  this  dirty,  despicable  island."  ^  And 
two  years  afterward :  "  Liberty  has  still  a  conti- 

Reverend  Jonathan  Sliipley,  Lord  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph.     Lon- 
don,    pp.  6,  7,  8. 

1  Letters  to  Horaee  Mann,  Feb.  2,  1774,  vol.  ii.  p.  263. 

2  Letters  to  Countess  of  Ossory. 

24 


370       THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

neiit  to  exist  in.  I  do  not  care  a  straw  who 
is  Minister  in  this  abandoned  country.  It  is 
the  good  old  cause  of  freedom  that  I  have  at 
heart."  ^ 

A  passage  from  John  Cartwright,  Reformer, 
should  have  place  here  :  "When  we  talk  of  assert- 
ing our  sovereignty  over  the  Americans,  do  we 
foresee  to  what  fatal  lengths  it  will  carry  us  ? 
Are  not  those  nations  increasing  with  astonishing 
rapidity  ?  Must  they  not,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
cover  in  a  few  ages  that  immense  continent  like  a 
swarm  of  bees  ?  " 

The  Declaration  of  American  Independence,  and 
the  "  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Sources  of  the 
Wealth  of  Nations,"  were  published  to  the  world 
the  same  year.  Adam  Smith,  author  of  the 
"  Inquiry,"  urged  that  the  Colonies  should  be  rep- 
resented in  Parliament,  and  continue  to  be,  in 
proportion  to  taxation ;  and  he  has  this  passage : 
"  The  distance  of  America  from  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment—  the  natives  of  that  country  might  flatter 
themselves,  with  some  appearance  of  reason  too  — 
would  not  be  of  a  very  long  continuance.  Such 
has  hitherto  been  tlie  rapid  progress  of  that  coun- 
try in  wealth,  population,  and  improvements,  that 
in  the  course  of  little  more  than  a  century,  per- 
haps, the  produce  of  America  might  exceed  that 
of  British  taxation.  The  seat  of  empire  would" 
then  naturally  remove  itself  to  that  part  of  the 

1  Letters  to  Countess  ol  Onsor}',  cxxix. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       371 

empire  which  contributed  most  to  the  general 
defence  and  support  of  the  whole."  ^ 

John  Adams,  making  estimations  on  the  same 
basis,  and  for  not  a  long  period,  till  the  Colonies 
surpass  the  mother  country  in  taxable  property, 
then  puts  the  home  question  :  "  What  will  become 
of  your  supreme  legislature  ?  It  will  be  translated, 
crown  and  all,  to  America." 

Perhaps  no  foreigner  has  been  more  ardent  in 
his  friendship  for  the  United  States,  and  more 
prophetic  iu  his  expectations  for  the  young  nation, 
than  Dr.  Eichard  Price  the  Welchman.  In  de- 
clininsf  an  invitation  of  Congress  to  become  an 
American  citizen  and  assist  in  regulatins;  our 
finances,  he  says  that  he  looks  "  to  the  American 
States  as  now  the  hope  and  likely  soon  to  become 
the  refuge  of  mankind."  In  1776  he  began  to 
write  tracts  in  the  interest  of  the  Colonies,  and  in 
his  first  prophecy  he  says,  "  The  probability  is  that 
they  will  go  on  to  increase,  and  that  in  fifty  or 
sixty  years  they  will  be  double  our  number,  and 
form  a  mighty  empire."^  A  second  tract  and 
prophecy  followed  in  1784,  in  which  he  predicts 
that  the  independence  of  the  Colonies  will  begin 
a  new  era  in  the  annals  of  mankind,  and  produce  a 
revolution  more  important,  perhaps,  than  any  that 

1  Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  IV.  chap,  vii.pt.  iii.  McCuUoch's 
4th  Edition,     p.  282. 

2  Justice  and  Policy  of  the  War  with  America.  4th  Edition. 
London,  1776.     pp.  43,  44. 


372  THE   KMI'IItE   OF   THE   FUTURE. 

has  happened  in  liunian  affairs.  After  the  recog- 
nition of  American  Independence,  his  heart  and 
vision  came  out  once  more :  "  A  revolution  which 
opens  a  new  prospect  in  human  affairs,  and  begins 
a  new  era  in  the  history  of  mankind.  .  .  .  Perhaps 
I  do  not  go  too  far  when  I  say  that,  next  to 
the  introduction  of  Christianity  among  mankind, 
the  American  Revohition  may  prove  the  most  im- 
portant step  in  the  progressive  course  of  human 
improvement.  .  .  .  Perhaps  there  never  existed 
a  people  on  whose  wisdom  and  virtue  more  de- 
pended, or  to  whom  a  station  of  more  importance 
in  the  plan  of  Providence  has  been  assigned." 
"  Providing,  in  a  sequestered  continent,  possessed 
of  many  singular  advantages,  a  place  of  refuge 
for  oppressed  men  in  every  region  of  the  world, 
by  laying  the  foundation  there  of  an  empire  which 
may  be  the  seat  of  liberty,  science,  and  virtue,  and 
from  whence  there  is  reason  to  hope  these  sacred 
blessings  will  spread  till  they  become  universal."  ^ 

Galiani  the  N"eapolitan,  and  yet  French  much 
by  office  and  domicile,  a  man  of  letters,  and  a  good 
student  in  the  civil  and  social  state  of  Europe, 
prophesied  most  hopefully  for  the  United  States, 
and  yet  partly  because  so  despondent  for  Europe. 
After  quoting  what  Livy  said  of  decaying  Eome, 
"  We  have  fallen  on  times  when  we  can  neither 

^  Observations  on  the  Importance  of  the  American  Revolution 
and  the  Means  of  making  it  a  Benefit  to  the  World,  Lon- 
don, 1784.     pp.  2,  3,  7,  8. 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    FUTURE.  3/3 

endure  our  vices  nor  their  remedies,"  he  says,  in 
one  of  his  letters :  "Do  you  know  the  reality  ? 
The  epoch  has  come  of  the  total  fall  of  Europe 
and  of  transmigration  into  America."  Tliis  was 
before  our  Revolution  ;  and  when  it  was  two  years 
under  way,  he  wrote  again  :  "  You  will  at  this  time 
have  decided  the  greatest  revolution  of  the  globe; 
namely,  if  it  is  America  which  is  to  reign  over 
Europe,  or  if  it  is  Europe  which  is  to  continue 
to  reign  over  America.  I  will  wager  in  favor  of 
America."  ^ 

It  is  very  gratifying  to  introduce  the  judgments 
of  one  who  not  only  combined  scholarship  with 
statemanship,  but,  with  these,  long  experience 
in  American  affairs.  Thomas  Pownall  was  secre- 
tary of  the  Commission  for  Trade  and  Plantations  as 
early  as  1745  ;  as  Commissioner  for  Massachusetts 
Bay  in  1755,  he  arranged  with  New  England,  New 
York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  for  the 
expedition  against  Crown  Point.  He  was  Crown 
Governor,  moreover,  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  New 
Jersey,  and  South  Carolma.  After  this  he  was 
impressed  further  into  the  study  of  statemanship 
by  being  Comptroller-General  of  the  Army  in 
Germany,  1761,  and  in  three  Parliaments,  ending 
in  1780.  He  was  in  advance  of  many  Eastern 
and  public  Americans  of  to-day  in  understanding 
our  geography.  He  showed  to  the  English  Parlia- 
ment the  necessity  of  an  early  and  equal  union 

1  Prophetic  Voices,     By  Charles  Sumner,    p.  106. 


:-;74  THE  EMriiii']  of  the  future. 

of  tlic  colonies  with  Great  Britain,  or  the  certainty 
of  an  American  and  rorniidable  union.  Foreseeing 
tlic  new  and  hastening  nation  in  the  European 
family  of  them,  ho  called  the  attention  of  the 
governments  of  the  Old  World  to  the  inevitable 
fact,  in  "  A  Memorial  to  the  Sovereigns  of  Europe, 
1780."  He  solicited  their  attention  and  comity 
and  high  international  policy  for  the  event. 
"  North  America  has  become  a  new  primary 
planet  in  the  system  of  the  world,  which,  while  it 
takes  its  own  course,  must  have  effect  on  the  orbit 
of  every  other  planet,  and  shift  the  common  cen- 
tre of  gravity  of  the  whole  system  of  the  European 
world."  It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  intelligent, 
broad,  and  forecasting  writers  on  the  United  States 
resort  to  astronomical  spaces  for  room  to  open  up 
their  theme.  A  bold  passage  has  been  quoted 
from  John  Adams.  Pownall  continues  :  "  The 
independence  of  America  is  fixed  as  fate.  She  is 
mistress  of  her  own  future,  knows  that  she  is  so, 
and  will  actuate  that  power  which  she  feels  she 
hath,  so  as  to  establish  her  own  system,  and  to 
change  the  system  of  Europe."^  In  the  Hiilse- 
mann  Correspondence  "Webster  gives  an  illustra- 
tion of  this.  In  that  rare  specimen  of  diplomatic 
writing,  so  free  of  all  ambiguity  and  so  clearly  and 
energetically  set  forth  in  clean  Saxon,  our  Secre- 
tary of  State  thus  meets  the  Austrian  complaint 

1  Three  Memorials  to  the  Sovereigns  of  Europe,  Great  Britain, 
and  North  America.     London,  1784.     pp.  4,  5. 


THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE  FUTUKE.  375 

that  the  United  States  were  somewhat  the  source 
of  the  uneasiness  in  Europe  in  1848,  which  cul- 
minated in  the  Hungarian  revolt  under  Kossuth. 
"  True,  indeed,  it  is,  that  the  prevalence  on  the 
other  continent  of  sentiments  favorable  to  republi- 
can liberty  is  the  result  of  the  reaction  of  America 
upon  Europe ;  and  the  source  and  centre  of  this 
reaction  has  doubtless  been,  and  now  is,  in  these 
United  States."  ^ 

To  return  to  Governor  Pownall :  "North  America 
has  advanced,  and  is  every  day  advancing,  to 
growth  of  State,  with  a  steady  and  continually 
accelerating  motion,  of  whieli  there  never  yet  has 
been  an  example  in  Europe."  ^  When  the  treaty  of 
peace  was  concluded,  he  congratulated  Franklin  on 
the  successful  conclusion  of  "  a  Revolution  that  has 
stronger  marks  of  Divine  interposition,  supersed- 
ing the  ordinary  course  of  human  affairs,  than  any 
other  event  which  this  world  has  experienced." 

After  this  manner  he  expresses  his  wish  to 
revisit  America  :  "  If  there  ever  w^as  an  object 
worth  travelling  to  see,  and  worthy  of  the  con- 
templation of  a  philosopher,  it  is  that  in  whicli 
he  may  see  the  beginning  of  a  great  empire  at 
its  foundation."^  In  a  letter  two  years  later  to 
Franklin,  who  was  about  to  return  to  America,  he 
says  :  "  You  are  going  to  a  New  World,  formed  to 

1  Webster's  Works,  vol.  vi.  p.  495.     Edition  of  1851. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  56. 

8  Sparks's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  ix.  p.  491. 


376  TIIK    E.MI'IUK    UF    THE    FUTUKE. 

exhibit  a  scene  which  the  Old  World  never  yet 
saw."  ^  "  America  will  become  the  arbitress  of  the 
commercial,  and  perhaps  the  mediatrix  of  peace, 
and  of  the  political  business  of  the  world."  ^ 

With  singular  foresight,  and  taking  a  figure  of 
speech  from  the  cherubim  at  Eden,  he  thus  antici- 
pates the  incoming  tides  of  immigration  :  "  Unless 
the  great  potentates  of  Europe  can  station  some 
such  universal  and  equally  efficient  power  of  re- 
straint to  prevent  man's  quitting  the  Old  World, 
multitudes  of  their  people  will  emigrate  to  the 
New  One."  3 

How  fulfilment  chases  up  prediction  on  our 
continent !  "  Do  you  know,"  said  John  Bright  at 
Bii^mingham,  in  1862,  "that  in  fifteen  years  two 
million  five  hundred  thousand  persons  —  men, 
women,  and  children  —  have  left  the  United 
Kingdom  to  find  a  home  in  the  Free  States  of 
America  ?  This  is  a  population  equal  to  eight 
great  cities  of  the  size  of  Birmingham.  What 
would  you  think  of  eight  Birminghams  being 
transplanted  from  this  country  and  set  down  in 
the  United  States  ? "  * 

Or,  quoting  from  another,  and  taking  the  whole 
Old  World  as  an  emigrating  point,  and  a  wider 

1  Spark's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  x.  p.  343. 

2  Memorial,  p.  77. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  87. 

*  Speeches  of  John  Bright,  ]\I.  P.,  on  the  American  Ques- 
tion.    Boston,  1865.     p.  121. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       377 

sweep  of  time :  "  During  the  last  sixty  years  no 
less  than  sixteen  millions  of  people  have  left  the 
Old  World  for  homes  in  America  and  the  British 
Colonies,  of  whom  nearly  eleven  millions  have 
landed  on  the  shores  of  the  United  States."  ^ 

A  French  voice  should  here  be  heard.  Cerisier 
was  a  well-bred  scholar  and  writer  on  national  and 
civil  questions.  Before  the  acknowledged  inde- 
pendence of  the  United  States,  he  said,  in  an  elab- 
orate disquisition  on  'Eepublics :  "  The  influence 
of  America  will  become  preponderant  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  can  perhaps  transport  the  seat  of  em- 
pire to  their  country,  and  so,  without  danger  and 
without  convulsive  agitation,  render  this  immense 
continent,  already  so  favored  by  nature,  the  thea- 
tre of  one  of  the  greatest  and  freest  governments 
which  ever  existed."  And  in  another  smaller 
work,  soon  following :  "  Tliis  revolution  is,  then, 
the  most  happy  event  which  could  arrive  to  the 
human  species  and  to  all  the  States  separately."  ^ 
Of  course  we  .make  abatement  from  all  these 
French  writers,  as  speaking  of  the  interests  and 
policies  of  a  rival  nation. 

One  of  the  most  efficient  men  in  Europe  in 
national  and  international  affairs  during  the  last 

1  The  West :  From  the  Census  of  1880.  By  Robert  P.  Por- 
ter. Chicago  and  London,  1882.  p.  9.  Here  is  a  number  of 
immigrants  seven  times  greater  than  the  entire  jjopulation  of 
the  thirteen  revolting  Colonies  at  that  time  when  Pownall 
served  his  warning  on  the  sovereigns  of  Europe. 

'^  Sumner's  Prophetic  Voices,  pp.  131,  132. 


378  THE   EiMI'IUE    OF   THE   FUTUHE. 

half  of  the  last  century  was  Count  de  Vergennes, 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  to  Louis  XVI.  on  his 
accession,  1774.  He  liad  previously  been  French 
Minister  at  Treves,  and  Amljassador  to  Constan- 
tinople, holding  England  and  Prussia  in  check 
against  his  own  country.  He  aided  our  Colonies 
variously  till  independence  was  assured,  and  was 
efficient  for  the  young  Kepublic  in  the  treaties  of 
peace,  1782  and  1783.  He  was  therefore  versed 
in  statecraft,  skilled  in  promoting,  checking,  and 
guiding  European  politics,  and  was  peculiarly  well 
fitted  from  experience  to  forecast  national  inter- 
ests. As  such  he  is  here  introduced.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  he  exercises  friendship  only  for 
France ;  all  else  is  policy. 

The  Count  had  visions  of  colonial  independence 
before  the  battle  of  Lexington,  but  that  fight 
made  them  clearer,  and  he  thus  wrote  to  the 
French  Ambassador  at  London  :  "  We  must  be  on 
our  guard,  that  the  independence  which  produces 
so  terrible  an  explosion  in  North  America  may 
not  communicate  itself  to  points  that  interest 
us  in  the  hemispheres,  .  .  .  We  have  a  presenti- 
ment that  it  may  be  followed  by  more  extensive 
consequences."  ^ 

Later  in  the  same  year,  October,  1775,  he  said 
to  Lord  Stormont,  British  Ambassador  in  France : 
"I   see   the    consequences   that   must  follow  the 

1  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  vii.  p.  352. 
12th  Edition. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTUUE.       379 

independence  of  North  America,  if  your  Colonies 
should  carry  that  point  at  which  they  now  so 
visibly  aim.  They  might,  when  they  pleased, 
conquer  both  your  islands  and  ours.  I  am  per- 
suaded that  they  would  not  stop  there,  but  would, 
in  process  of  time,  advance  to  the  southern  con- 
tinent of  America,  and  either  subdue  its  inhabi- 
tants or  carry  them  along  with  them,  and  in  the 
end  not  leave  a  foot  of  that  hemisphere  in  the 
possession  of  any  European  power.  All  those 
consequences  will  not,  indeed,  be  immediate. 
Neither  you  nor  I  shall  live  to  see  them ;  but  for 
being  remote  they  are  no  less  sure."  ^ 

In  1778  Spain  became  anxious  for  the  politi- 
cal consequences  that  might  follow  independence, 
and  desired  that  England  should  hold  afterward 
Ehode  Island,  New  York,  and  other  sections  of 
the  coast.  To  this  Vergennes  objected  for  the 
king,  on  account  of  the  French  pledges  given  to 
the  Colonies,  but  added  :  "  We  are  very  far  from 
desiring  that  the  nascent  Kepublic  should  re- 
main the  exclusive  mistress  of  all  that  immense 
continent."  ^ 

This  able  statesman  was  not  the  man  idly  to 
foresee  dangers  for  France.  He  therefore  culti- 
vated and  returned  the  anxieties  of  Spain,  and 
suggested  methods  for  keeping  the  liepublic  from 
obtaining  too  much  territory  ;  and  he  proposed  that 

1  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  vol,  vii.  p.  164. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  X.  pp.  182,  183. 


380       THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

England,  Spain,  HollaiKl,  and  France  combine  to 
assign  it  narrow  limits,  and  then  hold  it  rigidly  to 
them.  One  result  of  this  proposal  was  the  most 
strenuous  endeavor  of  the  English,  aided  by  the 
Count,  to  shut  olf  the  United  States  from  the 
Great  Lakes,  and  keep  the  new  nation  to  the  east 
of  all  waters  flowing  into  the  Ohio.  It  was  barely 
short  of  a  failure  of  a  treaty  that  Oswald,  the 
English  commissioner,  yielded,  and  the  liepublic 
moved  up  to  the  centre  of  the  great  chain  of  lakes 
and  to  the  forty-ninth  parallel,  and  West  to  the 
Mississippi  River.  It  is  all  the  same  that  our 
growth  of  empire  was  resisted ;  enough  for  our 
purpose  now  that  it  was  anticipated,  and  that 
anxieties  and  fears   became  prophecies. 

The  Count  Aranda  signed  the  Treaty  of  Peace 
of  1783  for  Spain,  and,  he  says,  with  grief  and 
dread.  These  feelings  and  their  causes,  too,  are 
made  obvious  in  a  Memoir  which  he  secretly  ad- 
dressed to  his  king,  Charles  III.,  soon  after.  With 
France  withdrawn  from  North  America,  and  Eng- 
land no  longer  holding  the  Colonies  in  check,  he 
fears  for  the  security  of  New  Spain.  "  This  Fed- 
eral Republic  is  born  a  pygmy,  so  to  speak.  A  day 
will  come  when  it  will  be  a  giant,  even  a  Colossus. 
.  .  .  The  first  movement  of  this  power,  when  it 
has  arrived  at  its  aggrandizement,  will  be  to  obtain 
possession  of  the  Floridas,  in  order  to  dominate  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico.  After  having  rendered  commerce 
with  New  Spain  difficult  for  us,  it  will  aspire  to  the 


THE  KMPIKE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       381 

conquest  of  this  vast  empire.  .  .  .  These  fears  are 
well-founded.  Sire :  they  will  be  changed  into 
reality  in  a  few  years."  ^  A  prophecy  so  soon 
fulfilled  ! 

William  Paley,  in  his  "  Moral  Philosophy,"  1785, 
combines  a  rebuke  and  a  prophecy  in  the  chapter 
on  Slavery.  Referring  to  the  English  introduction 
and  support  of  human  bondage  in  the  Colonies, 
and  to  their  recently  acknowledged  independence, 
he  expresses  a  doubt  "  whether  a  legislature  which 
had  so  long  lent  its  assistance  to  the  support  of  an 
institution  replete  with  human  misery,  was  fit  to 
be  trusted  with  an  empire  the  most  extensive 
that  ever  obtained  in  any  age  or  quarter  of  the 
world."  2 

We  must  not  omit  David  Hartley  from  the 
noble  roll  of  Englishmen  who  favored  American 
Independence  and  predicted  and  assumed  most 
liopefully  for  our  future.  He  was  the  British 
plenipotentiary  who  signed  the  treaty  of  peace. 
In  a  letter  written  in  1785  he  gives  admonition  to 
those  who  were  to  shape  the  yoimg  nation,  never 
too  much  heeded  then  or  now  :  "  Those  who  have 
the  first  care  of  this  New  World  will  probably  give 
it  such  directions  and  inherent  influences  as  may 
guide  and  control  its  course  and  revolutions  for  the 
ages  to  come,"  and  then  refers  to  its  "  unwieldy 
magnitude  of  empire,  and  the  future  population  of 

1  Sumner' .<?  Prophetic  Voices,  p.  142. 

2  Paley's  AVorks,  vol.  iii.  p.  173.     Boston,  1811. 


382       THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

millions  superadded  to  millions."  He  thinks  tliat 
"  the  immense  cession  of  territory  to  the  United 
States  at  the  late  peace  is  a  point  which  will  per- 
haps in  a  few  years  become  an  unparalleled  phe- 
nomenon in  the  political  world.  .  .  .  Here  will  be 
a  nation  possessed  of  a  new  and  unheard-of  finan- 
cial organ  of  stupendous  magnitude,  and  in  process 
of  time  of  unmeasured  value." 

Referring  in  this  connection  to  the  plans  and 
proposals  of  Congress  to  put  these  lands  on  the 
market  of  the  world  at  low  rates  and  for  all  immi- 
grants, he  adds  :  "  These  are  such  propositions  of 
free  establishments  as  have  never  yet  been  offered 
to  mankind,  and  cannot  fail  of  producing  great 
effects  in  the  future  progress  of  things."  ^ 

The  Abb^  Grdgoire,  sometimes  called  Bishop, 
eminent  in  several  public  positions,  sacred  and  sec- 
ular, in  France,  has  put  a  daring  question  on  the 
future  of  the  United  States. 

"  When  an  energetic  and  powerful  nation,  to 
which  everything  presages  high  destinies,  stretch- 
ing its  arms  upon  the  two  oceans,  Atlantic  and 
Pacific,  shall  direct  its  vessels  from  one  to  the 
other  by  an  abridged  route  ...  it  will  change 
the  face  of  the  commercial  world  and  the  face  of 
empires.  Who  knows  if  America  will  not  then 
avenge  the  outrages  she  has  received,  and  if  our 

*  Prophetic  Voices  concerning  America.  By  Charles  Sumner. 
Boston,  1874.  pp.  99-103.  Mr.  Sumner  gives  this  letter  its  first 
publication. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       383 

old  Europe,  placed  in  the  rank  of  a  subaltern 
power,  will  not  become  a  colony  of  the  New 
World  ? "  1 

Thomas  Jefferson  never  rose  to  the  grand  con- 
ception of  our  national  domain  as  inter-oceanic. 
He  could  anticipate  free  States  on  the  Pacific,  of 
our  blood  and  after  our  model,  but  not  outfrrowth 
or  enlargement  of  the  original  republic.  His  let- 
ters of  1812  and  1813  to  John  Jacob  Astor  show 
this.  Yet  he  varied,  as  a  diseased  eye,  between 
long  and  short  sight,  and  sometimes  caught  a  vis- 
ion in  the  prophetic  distance.  So  in  his  letter 
to  Livingstone  in  1824  he  urges  him  to  cherish 
"  every  measure  which  may  foster  our  brotherly 
union,  and  perpetuate  a  constitution  of  government 
destined  to  be  the  primitive  and  precious  model  of 
what  is  to  change  the  condition  of  man  over  the 
globe."  ^ 

So,  writing  of  the  Spanish  possessions  on  our 
southwest  in  1786,  he  says :  "We  should  take  care 
not  to  think  it  for  the  interest  of  that  great  conti- 
nent to  press  too  soon  upon  the  Spaniards.  Those 
countries  cannot  be  in  better  hands.  My  fear  is 
that  they  are  too  feeble  to  hold  them  until  our 
population  can  be  sufficiently  advanced  to  gain  it 
from  them  piece  by  piece."  ^ 

First  of  all  foreign  modern  students  of  American 

^  Sumner's  Prophetic  Voioes,  p.  154. 

2  Works,  vol.  vii.  p.  344.    Washington,  1854. 

3  American  State  Papers,  Boston  Edition,  vol.  v.  p.  94. 


384  THE    KMI'IRE    OF   THK    FUTUllE. 

institutions,  after  some  experience  had  removed 
in  a  measure  our  rawness  and  uncertainty,  was  De 
Tocqueville.  Though  of  the  nobility,  he  was  dem- 
ocratic in  his  sympathies  and  labors.  A  great  stu- 
dent, he  came  to  the  United  States  in  1831,  as  to  a 
school  where  theories  were  in  practice,  and  he  could 
take  lessons  from  actual  life.  The  result  was 
his  "Democracy  in  Amai-ica,"  1835,  and  another 
publication  in  the  same  line  and  with  the  same 
title  in  1840.  Having  had  an  extensive  range  in 
public  offices  and  labors  for  France,  he  was  re- 
strained much  from  writing  as  only  a  theorist.  It 
will  be  seen,  therefore,  tliat  he  was  well  qualified 
to  utter  some  of  those  human  prophecies  whicli  are 
but  condensed  judgments  and  inferences  from  a 
wide  knowledge  as  to  the  future  of  the  United 
States.  And  in  this  catalogue  of  predictions,  culled 
from  the  progressive  writers  of  more  than  two 
hundred  years,  I  doubt  whether  any  will  out- 
rank, in  studious  judgment  and  reliability,  these 
about  to  be  quoted  from  De  Tocqueville :  "  The 
Americans  of  the  United  States  must  inevita- 
bly become  one  of  the  greatest  nations  in  the 
world  ;  their  offspring  will  cover  almost  the  whole 
of  North  America;  the  continent  which  they  in- 
habit is  their  dominion,  and  it  cannot  escape 
them.^  ...  In  the  midst  of  the  uncertain  future, 
one  event,  at  least,  is  sure.     At  a  period  which 

^  Democracy  in   Aineiii;;i,  vol.    i.  p.    519.     Boweu'.s  Edition, 
1862. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       385 

may  be  said  to  be  near,  —  for  we  are  speaking  of 
the  life  of  a  nation,  —  the  Anglo-Americans  alone 
Avill  cover  the  immense  space  contained  between 
the  polar  regions  and  the  tropics,  extending  from 
the  coasts  of  the  Atlantic  to  those  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  The  territory  which  will  probably  be  occu- 
pied by  the  Anglo-Americans  may  perhaps  equal 
three  quarters  of  Europe  in  extent."  ^  It  is  much 
more  than  the  whole  of  Europe. 

The  United  States  held  but  little  territory  on 
the  Pacific  at  that  time,  and  the  statesman-seer 
could  not  have  been  expected  to  specify  San  Diego, 
Behring's  Strait,  and  Point  Barrow  as  bounds. 
The  present  area  of  the  United  States  is  larger 
than  the  whole  of  Europe  by  the  area  of  New  Eng- 
land, New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania  and 
both  the  Virginias.  And  he  continues  with  the 
same  clear  vision :  "  The  time  will  therefore  come 
when  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  men  will 
be  living  in  North  America,  equal  in  condition, 
all  belonging  to  one  family,  owing  their  origin  to 
the  same  cause,  and  preserving  the  same  civili- 
zation, the  same  language,  the  same  religion,  the 
same  habits,  tlie  same  manners,  and  imbued  with 
the  same  opinions,  propagated  under  the  same 
forms.  The  rest  is  uncertain,  but  this  is  certain ; 
and  it  is  a  fact  new  to  the  world,  —  a  fact  which 
the  imagination  strives  in  vain  to  grasp."  ^ 

1  Democracy  in  America,  p.  557. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  558. 

25 


386  THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE   FUTUltE. 

Lucas  Alaman  was  pvomiiicut  in  Mexico,  where 
so  many  have  gained  a  brief  prominence  and  given 
place  to  others  since  her  independence,  1824.  A 
paragraph  concentrates  all  he  says  in  our  present 
line  of  thought.  "  Mexico  will  be  without  doubt 
a  land  of  prosperity  from  its  natural  advantages, 
but  it  will  not  be  so  for  the  races  which  now  in- 
habit it."  1 

Alaman  expands  this  Jeremiad  in  his  fifth  vol- 
ume of  the  "  History  of  Mexico,"  published  in  1852. 
We  can  fancy  the  sorrow  of  the  patriot  scholar  as 
he  wrote  out  that  sad  refrain.  The  treaty  of  Gua- 
dalupe Hidalgo  was  then  but  three  years  old, 
which  transferred  nearly  half  of  the  Mexican  Fed- 
eral Eepublic  to  a  conquering  neighbor.  An  illus- 
tration here  of  what  Webster  said  of  progress  in  the 
United  States,  — "  The  prophecies  lag  behind  the 
fulfilment." 

In  1863,  and  near  its  close,  when  the  American 
future  showed  by  no  means  a  perfectly  clear  sky, 
John  Bright  uttered  some  words,  each  of  which 
Avas  worth  a  thousand  men  for  our  threatened 
Union.  It  was  at  Eochdale  :  "  Will  anybody  deny 
now  that  the  Government  at  Washington,  as  regards 
its  own  people,  is  the  strongest  government  in  the 
world,  at  this  hour,  —  and  for  this  simple  reason, 
that  it  is  based  on  the  will,  and  the  good-will  of  an 
instructed  people  ?  Look  at  its  power.  .  .  .  They 
have  brought  more  men  into  the  field,  built  more 

1  Suinuex"'s  Prophetic  Voices,  p.  169. 


THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE   FUTURE.  387 

ships  for  their  navy,  they  have  shown  greater  re- 
sources, than  any  nation  in  Europe  is  capable  of. 
.  .  .  Then  Europe  and  England  may  learn  that  an 
instructed  democracy  is  the  surest  foundation  of 
government,  and  that  education  and  freedom  are 
the  only  sources  of  true  greatness  and  true  happi- 
ness among  any  people." 

And  two  months  later,  at  Birmingham,  1864, 
when  the  English  recognition  of  the  Confederacy 
was  under  discussion  :  "  I  am  myself  of  opinion, 
as  I  have  been  from  the  first,  that  the  people  of 
America,  so  numerous,  so  pow^erful,  so  instructed, 
so  capable  in  every  way,  will  settle  the  difficulties 
of  that  continent  without  asking  the  old  countries 
of  Europe  to  take  any  share  in  them."  ^ 

Eor  the  International  Committee  of  the  World's 
Exposition  at  Paris  in  1867,  Michel  Chevalier 
made  a  report,  and  it  contains  some  most  re- 
markable passages  for  European  nations  to  read  : 
"  It  seems  that  the  supreme  authority  is  about 
to  escape  from  Western  and  Central  Europe,  to 
pass  to  the  New  World.  In  the  northern  part  of. 
that  other  hemisphere  offshoots  of  the  European 
race  have  founded  a  vigorous  society,  full  of  sap, 
whose  influence  grows  with  a  rapidity  that  has 
never  yet  been  seen  anywhere.  In  crossing  the 
ocean  it  has  left  behind  on  the  soil  of  old  Europe 
traditions,  prejudices,  and  usages  which,  as  impedi- 

1  Speeches  of  John  Bright,  M.P.,  on  the  American  Ques- 
tion.    Boston,  1865.     pp.  257,  258,  259,  263. 


388  THE    EMPIRE   01'-   THE    FUTUIIE. 

inents  heavy  to  move,  would  have  embarrassed  its 
movements  and  retarded  its  progressive  march. 
In  about  thirty  years  the  United  States  will  have, 
according  to  all  probability,  a  hundred  millions  of 
population,  in  possession  of  the  most  powerful 
means,  distributed  over  a  territory  which  would 
make  France  fifteen  or  sixteen  times  over  [nineteen 
times],  and  of  the  most  wonderful  disposition.  .  .  . 
Vainly  do  the  occidental  and  central  nations  of 
Europe  attribute  to  themselves  a  primacy  which 
in  their  vanity  they  think  sheltered  from  events, 
and  eternal ;  as  if  there  were  anything  eternal  in 
the  grandeur  and  prosperity  of  societies,  the  works 
of  men  ! " 

Some  of  these  bright  and  stirring  anticipations 
for  America  surprise  us  by  coming  from  lands 
where  growth  and  progress  and  anticipation  are  not 
the  normal  state  of  things.  In  this  light  a  quo- 
tation is  presented  from  a  speech  in  the  Spanish 
Cortes,  in  1871,  by  Emilio  Castelar:  "America, 
and  especially  Saxon  America,  with  its  immense 
virgin  territories,  with  its  republic,  with  its  equi- 
librium between  stability  and  progress,  with  its 
harmony  between  liberty  and  democracy,  is  the 
continent  of  the  future,  —  the  immense  continent 
stretched  by  God  between  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Pacific,  where  mankind  may  plant,  essay,  and  re- 
solve all  social  problems.  Europe  has  to  decide 
whether  she  will  confound  herself  with  Asia,  pla- 
cing upon  her  lands  old  altars,  and  upon  the  altars 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       389 

old  idols,  and  upon  the  idols  immovable  theocra- 
cies, and  upon  the  theocracies  despotic  empires,  or 
whether  she  will  go  by  labor,  by  liberty,  and  by 
the  republic,  to  collaborate  with  America  in  the 
grand  work  of  universal  civilization." 

At  the  Festival  of  the  New  England  Society, 
New  York,  1850,  Webster  thus  unites  the  historian 
and  the  prophet :  "  Hitherto  the  extension  of  our 
race,  following  our  New  England  ancestry,  has 
crept  along  the  shore.  But  now  it  has  extended 
itself.  It  has  crossed  the  continent.  It  has  not 
only  transcended  the  Alleghanies,  but  has  capped 
the  Eocky  Mountains.  It  is  now  upon  the  shores 
of  the  Pacific.  It  shall  yet  go  hard,  if  the  three 
hundred  millions  of  people  of  China,  provided  they 
are  intelligent  enough  to  understand  anything, 
shall  not  one  day  hear  and  know  something  of  the 
Eock  of  Plymouth,  too. 

"The  emergence  of  this  country  from  British 
dominion  is  one  of  the  most  fortunate,  the  most 
admirable,  the  most  auspicious  occurrences  which 
has  ever  fallen  to  tlie  lot  of  man.  The  power  of 
this  Eepublic  at  the  present  moment  is  spread 
over  a  region,  one  of  the  richest  and  most  fertile 
on  the  globe,  and  of  extent  in  comparison  with 
which  the  possessions  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg 
are  as  but  a  patch  on  the  earth's  surface."  ^ 

But  necessity  compels  abbreviation  in  these  quo- 

^  Webster's  Hiilsemann  Correspondence  ;  Works,  vol.  vi. 
p.  496. 


390  THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    FUTURE. 

tations  from  the  prophets  on  America.  A  group 
or  constellation  must  be  passed  along  at  the  same 
time,  with  only  a  sentence  and  reference  for  each. 
It  "  will  make  a  glorious  country,"  said  William 
Penn,  wlien  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  and  the  Valley 
of  the  Mississippi  were  the  topic.^  When  the 
Washingtons  and  Dinwiddle  were  proposing  to 
colonize  the  Ohio,  in  order  to  secure  it  for  the 
English  (1749),  Earl  Halifax,  head  of  the  Board 
of  Trade  and  Plantations,  made  this  remark  :  "  The 
country  west  of  the  great  mountains  is  the  centre 
of  the  British  Dominion." ^ 

,  We  have  already  quoted  what  Washington  said 
to  the  Chevalier  de  Chastellux,  1783,  when  speak- 
ing of  the  limits  of  the  treaty  about  to  be  pro- 
claimed as  those  "  which  have  given  bounds  to  a 
new  empire."  ^  When  the  sale  of  Louisiana  to  the 
United  States  was  about  to  be  concluded,  April  30, 
1803,  Napoleon  said  to  Livingstone,  the  American 
Commissioner,  that  he  "  was  desirous  of  giving  to 
the  United  States  a  magnificent  bargain,  an  em- 
pire for  a  mere  trifle."  *  And  at  another  time : 
"  The  day  may  come  when  the  cession  of  Louis- 
iana to  the  United  States  shall  render  the  Ameri- 
cans too  powerful  for  the  continent  of  Europe."^ 

1  Bancroft's  United  States,  vol.  iii.  p.  233. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  iv.  p.  42. 

•i  Ii'ving's  Life  of  Washington,  vol.  iv.  p.  434. 

*  Monette's  History  of  the  Mississippi  Valle)-,  vol.  i.  p.  552. 

^  Gayarre's  History  of  Louisiana,  vol.  iii.  p.  526. 


THE   EMPIRE    OF   THE    FUTURE.  391 

It  is  in  place  to  remark  here  on  the  wealth  of 
the  United  States  in  1880,  It  then  headed  the 
valuation  list  of  the  nations,  and  we  could  have 
bought  out,  according  to  Mulhall,  the  empires  of 
Eussia  and  Turkey,  as  well  as  the  kingdoms  of 
Italy,  Denmark,  Sweden  and  Norway,  Australia, 
South  Africa,  and  all  South  America,  —  everything 
valuable  in  each  and  all  to  which  a  dollar  and 
cent  estimate  could  be  attached.  But  as  Napo- 
leon's conception  of  our  future  power  was  doubtless 
military,  it  is  well  to  recall  what  Bright  said  of 
our  capability  for  land  and  sea  forces  in  1863, — 
"  greater  resources  than  any  nation  in  Europe  is 
capable  of."  Of  course  Napoleon  was  then  looking 
down  the  future  in  the  line  of  armies  and  navies, 
and  across  battlefields  and  new  international  boun- 
daries, and  over  thrones  destroyed,  and  new  ones. 
In  this  scoj)e  of  vision  and  thought  he  was  no 
doubt  correct.  lu  such  affairs  the  United  States 
has  become  too  powerful  for  European  intermed- 
dling. She  commands  her  situation,  and  if  at  all 
interested  in  any  "balance  of  power,"  it  is  simply 
to  balance  the  New  World  against  the  Old.  The 
forces  extemporized  in  the  late  Civil  War  are  a  fair 
index  of  the  power  to  which  Napoleon  referred, 
and  show  our  country  to  be  too  large  for  a  Water- 
loo of  the  allies. 

I  have  therefore  refrained  from  prophecies  and 
growths  in  this  line  for  the  coming  empire.  As 
rulers  of  this  world  the  race  of  Anak  is  gone  by, 


392  THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   FUTURE. 

and  the  bedstead  of  Og,  King  of  Bashan,  is  out  of 
style  and  use,  and  brain  is  nobly  taking  the  ascen- 
dency over  muscle.  It  suits  the  genius  of  Amer- 
ica to  ship  wheat  and  beef  rather  than  soldiers  and 
the  munitions  of  war  to  an  inferior  and  needy 
people ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  augury  of 
tlie  noblest  in  these  later  times  is  neither  Amer- 
ican nor  delusive,  —  that  the  highest  mastery 
among  the  nations  lies  in  the  highest  service  to 
all  nations. 

When  the  American  and  French  Commissioners 
had  affixed  their  signatures  to  the  papers  cover- 
ing the  sale  of  Louisiana,  Livingstone  remarked : 
"  From  this  day  the  United  States  take  their  place 
among  the  powers  of  the  first  rank."  These  in- 
struments "prepare  ages  of  happiness  for  innumera- 
ble generations  of  human  creatures."  ^ 

We  may  here  incidentally  remark  on  the  quiet- 
ness with  which  great  events  pass  along  in  the 
United  States.  The  transfer  of  Louisiana  from 
nation  to  nation  was  made  at  New  Orleans,  Dec. 
20,  1803,  at  meridian.  At  that  time  on  the  dial 
the  French  flag  was  lowered  and  the  American 
was  raised,  passing  eacli  other  midway  on  the  flag- 
staff. "  No  emotion  was  manifested  by  any  other 
part  of  the  crowd "  than  by  a  small  group  of 
Americans  on  a  corner.^  And  great  events  are 
still  taking  place  in  the  United  States  quite  unob- 

1  Gayarre's  History  of  Louisiana,  vol.  iii.  p.  525. 

2  Maibois's  History  of  Louisiana,  vol.  ii.  197-199. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       393 

served  except  by  small  groups  of  Americans  here 
and  there. 

In  a  tract  entitled  "  Reflections  on  the  Cession 
of  Louisiana  to  the  United  States,"  by  "  Sylvestris," 
1803,  occurs  this  sentence  :  "Never  since  the  com- 
mencement of  the  annals  of  mankind  did  any 
civilized  nation  possess  so  advantageous  a  position. 
.  .  ,  Who  that  looks  westward  can  fail  to  dis- 
cover an  unbounded  territory,  etc.  ...  I  will  not 
affirm  that  the  purchase  cannot  be  made  [it  had 
been  already].  It  is  clear  that  we  cannot  offer  a 
consideration  that  is  adequate ;  the  value  of  this 
Province  to  the  French  surpasses  the  reach  of 
mere  money."  ^ 

"  The  northern  Pacific  Ocean,  and  in  the  course 
of  time,  probably,  the  eastern  shores  of  Asia, 
will  find  their  masters  in  the  country  north  of 
California."  2 

When  President  McCosh  was  preaching  in  his 
former  pulpit  in  Brechin,  Scotland,  in  1884,  he  re- 
marked :  "  I  have  now  fewer  readers  than  I  could 
wish  in  this  country.  Thank  God,  I  am  getting  a 
hearing  in  the  wider  America." 

As  to  the  possibility  suggested  by  Napoleon, 
that  the  Americans  might  become  too  powerful 
for  tlie  continent  of  Europe,  some  passages  from 

^  Monroe's  Embassy,  etc.  By  Poplicola.  1803.  pp.  14, 
35,  45. 

^  Lord  Ashburton  to  Mr.  Sturgis,  1845  ;  Berlin  Arbitration, 
p.  37. 


394  THE    EMPIRE   OF   THE    FUTURE. 

an  article  by  Gladstone  read  quite  like  fulfilment. 
Alluding  to  the  marvellous  growth  of  this  nation, 
he  speaks  of  "  the  menace  wliich,  in  the  prospec- 
tive development  of  her  resources,  America  offers 
to  the  commercial  pre-eminence  of  England.  On 
this  subject  I  will  only  say  that  it  is  she  alone 
who,  at  a  coming  time,  can  and  probably  will 
wrest  from  us  that  commercial  primacy.  We 
have  no  title,  I  have  no  inclination,  to  murmur 
at  the  prospect.  If  she  acquires  it  she  will  take 
the  acquisition  by  the  right  of  the  strongest ;  but 
in  this  instance  the  strongest  means  the  best. 
She  will  probably  become  what  we  are  now,  —  the 
head  servant  in  the  great  houseliold  of  the  world, 
the  employer  of  all  employed,  because  her  service 
will  be  the  most  and  the  ablest.  We  have  no  more 
title  against  her  than  Venice  or  Genoa  or  Holland 
has  had  against  us." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  some  of  the  early  am- 
bitions of  Great  Britain  for  commercial  supremacy 
about  the  time  she  was  planting  those  Colonies 
which,  her  Premier  now  intimates,  they  may  take 
from  her :  "  His  Majesty  is  now  absolute  com- 
mander of  the  British  Isle,  and  hath  also  enlarged 
his  Dominions  over  a  great  part  of  the  Westerne 
Indies ;  by  means  of  which  extent  of  Empire 
(crossing  in  a  manner  the  whole  Ocean)  the  trade 
and  persons  of  all  Nations  (moving  from  one  part 
of  the  World  to  the  other)  must  of  necessitie,  first 
or  last,  come  within  compasse  of  his  power  and 


THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   FUTURE.  395 

jurisdiction.  And  therefore  the  Sovereignty  of  our 
Seas  being  the  most  precious  Jewell  of  his  Majes- 
tie's  Crowne,  and  (nex  under  God)  the  principall 
meanes  of  our  Wealth  and  Safetie,  all  true  English 
hearts  and  hands  are  bound  by  all  possible  meanes 
and  dilligence  to  preserve  and  maintain  the  same, 
even  with  the  uttermost  hazzard  of  their  lives,  their 
goods,  and  their  fortunes.  "^ 

Gladstone  continues  :  "  She  has,  taking  the  ca- 
pacity of  her  land  into  view,  as  well  as  its  mere 
measurement,  a  natural  base  for  the  greatest  con- 
tinuous empire  ever  established  by  man.  And 
it  may  be  well  here  to  mention,  what  has  not 
always  been  sufhciently  observed,  that  the  dis- 
tinction between  continuous  empire  and  empire 
severed  and  dispersed  over  sea  is  vital."  This  is 
a  significant  observation  for  the  Premier.  When 
he  wrote  it  the  fragmentary  colonial  possessions 
of  Great  Britain  were  forty.  Burmah  has  since 
been  added.  The  colonies  and  dependencies  of 
the  Queen  equal  about  one  seventh  of  the  land  of 
this  world,  and  embrace  about  one  fourth  of  its 
population. 

Would  Mr.  Gladstone  have  us  connect  his 
remark  about  a  severed  empire  with  his  remark 
closely  preceding  ?     "  One  great  duty  is  entailed 

1  The  Sovereignty  of  the  British  Seas,   proved  by  Records. 

History  and  the  Municipal  Lawes  of  this  Kingdom.  By  that 

Learned  Knight,  Sir  John  Boroughs.  London,  1651.  pp.  163- 
165. 


396  THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE   FUTURE. 

upon  US,  which  we  unfortunately  neglect,  —  the 
duty  of  preparing,  by  a  resolute  and  sturdy  effort, 
to  reduce  our  public  burdens  in  preparation  for 
a  day  when  we  shall  probably  have  less  capacity 
than  we  have  now  to  bear  them." 

But  to  return  to  his  observations  on  the  United 
States.  "  The  development  which  the  Eepublic 
has  effected  has  been  unexampled  in  its  rapidity 
and  force.  While  other  countries  have  doubled, 
or  at  most  trebled  their  population,  she  has  risen, 
during  a  single  century  of  freedom,  in  round  num- 
bers, from  two  millions  to  forty-five.  As  to  riches, 
it  is  reasonable  to  establish,  from  the  decennial 
stages  of  the  progress  thus  far  achieved,  a  series 
for  the  future  ;  and,  reckoning  upon  this  basis,  I 
suppose  that  the  very  next  census,  in  the  year 
1880,  will  exhibit  her  to  the  world  as  certainly 
the  wealthiest  of  all  the  nations.  .  .  .  Yet  even 
now  the  work  of  searching  the  soil  and  the  bowels 
of  the  territory,  and  opening  out  her  enterprise 
throughout  its  vast  expanse,  is  in  its  infancy. 
The  England  and  the  America  of  the  present  are 
probably  the  two  strongest  nations  of  the  world. 
But  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  as  between  the 
England  and  the  America  of  the  future,  that  the 
daughter,  at  some  no  very  distant  time,  will, 
whether  fairer  or  less  fair,  be  unquestionably  yet 
stronger  than  the  mother."  ^  Gladstone  was  right 
in  his  anticipations.     In  the  census  of  the  nations 

1  North  American  Review,  1878,  pp.  179-181. 


THE  EMPIRE   OF   THE   FUTURE.  397 

in  1880,  as  above  stated,  the  United  States  stood 
at  the  head  in  the  column  of  wealth. 

Of  course  in  colonial  days,  and  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Eepublic,  and  even  hitlierto,  men  have 
not  been  wanting,  ranking  well  in  scholarship  and 
official  position,  who  had  only  the  foresight  of 
discouragement  and  left-hand  omens.  To  round 
up  this  chapter  of  happy  anticipations,  one  author 
of  the  ill-boding,  who  has  never  lacked  a  successor, 
may  be  quoted. 

The  Baron  Sheffield  published  his  anxieties  in 
1783  :  "It  is  difficult  to  see  the  advantage  the 
New  England  Provinces  will  derive  from  inde- 
pendence and  separation  from  this  country.  Such 
lights  as  we  have  point  out  that  it  must  be  ruin- 
ous to  them,  and  that  nothing  could  be  more  to 
their  advantage  than  to  become  again  part  of  the 
empire."  The  American  republic  "  will  assume 
a  tone  of  importance ;  she  will  partake  of  the 
nature  of  new  men;  she  has  indulged  and  will 
indulge  herself  in  puerile  insolence ;  in  that,  per- 
haps, she  will  not  show  herself  much  unlike  her 
parent,  but  she  has  sense  and  information."  Ee- 
ferring  to  American  independence  as  conceded  by 
the  Crown,  the  Baron  says  :  "  Yet  the  gift,  how- 
ever disgraceful  to  ourselves  and  unnecessary,  will 
be  vain  and  useless  to  the  new  sovereign,"  —  the 
sovereign  people.  "  The  authority  of  the  Con- 
gress can  never  be  maintained  over  thdse  distant 
and  boundless   regions."     But  it  extends  over  a 


398  THE   EMPIRE    OF   THE   FUTUHE. 

region  much  larger  than  all  Europe.  "  The  emi- 
grants from  Europe  to  the  American  States  will 
be  miserably  disappointed ;  however,  having  got 
into  a  scrape,  tliey  may  wish  to  lead  others  after 
them  ;"  and  since  this  was  written  eleven  millions 
have  followed  them  in  a  marvellous  continuing 
through  a  hundred  years.  "  It  will  not  be  an  easy 
matter  to  bring  the  American  States  to  act  as  a 
nation  ;  they  are  not  to  be  feared  as  such  by  us." 

"  No  quantity  of  beef  was  exported  from  any 
Colony  but  Connecticut.  The  merchants  of  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  Rhode  Island  were  sup- 
plied from  thence,  and  New  Jersey.  Massachusetts 
salted  some  for  exportation  and  for  the  navy,  of 
an  inferior  quality  to  that  of  Ireland,  and  not  so 
well  cured.  There  is  but  little  in  Virginia.  The 
beef  of  the  Provinces  south  of  Pennsylvania  is  not 
good."  Yet  now  Europe  has  a  deficit  of  853,000 
tons  of  meat  annually,  and  the  United  States  has  a 
surplus  of  1,076,000.  "Excepting  the  instance  of 
three  or  four  years,  there  never  was  any  market  in 
Europe  for  the  wheat  and  wheat-flour  of  America, 
except  in  Spain,  Portugal,  and  the  ports  of  the 
Mediterranean."  Now  Europe  has  an  annual  de- 
ficit of  380,000,000  of  bushels  of  wheat,  and  the 
United  States  has  a  surplus  of  370,000,000.1 

But  enough  from  the  prophets  on  the  United 

1  Observations  on  the  Commerce  of  the  American  States. 
By  I.  B.  Holroyd,  Baron  Sheffield.  The  Second  Edition,  London 
1883,  pp.  63,  100,  104,  105,  106,  109,  71,  44. 


THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE   FUTURE.  399 

States  of  America.  It  remains  only  to  confront 
the  preceding  chapters  of  predictions  with  some 
fulfilments  into  which  we  have  lived.  As  to  ex- 
tension of  domain,  the  anxieties  of  Oswald  and 
Vergennes  have  been  immensely  realized.  Instead 
of  being  confined  to  the  eastward  of  the  watershed 
of  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  Ohio,  we  have  the 
springs  and  the  mouths  of  the  waters  flowing  into 
the  Pacific  and  Arctic  along  a  coast  of  6,411  miles. 
The  entire  western  coast  of  Europe  is  only  about 
10,000  miles.  The  treaty  of  1783  assigned  to  the 
young  nation  an  area  of  820,680  square  miles  ; 
now  the  nation  has  about  4,000,000.  Taking  one 
State  as  a  measuring  unit,  the  original  area  equalled 
one  hundred  and  two  States  like  Massachusetts, 
wdiile  it  has  been  increased  to  equal  four  hundred 
and  ninety-seven, 

A  few  comparative  facts,  taken  from  tables  made 
up  for  all  the  nations,  and  from  a  well-accredited 
author,  will  best  set  things  which  have  come  to 
pass  over  against  things  predicted.  The  citations 
are  made  from  "  The  Balance  Sheet  of  the  World 
for  Ten  Years,  — 1870-1880."  By  Michael  G. 
Mulhall,  F.  S.  S. :  London,  1881.  "  It  would  be 
impossible  to  find  in  history  a  parallel  to  the  pro- 
gress of  the  United  States  in  the  last  ten  years."  ^ 
During  those  ten  years  the  increase  of  population 
in  the  United  States  has  been  "three  times  the 
European  rate  of  increase,  and  double  that  of  Eng- 

1  Mulhall,  p.  108. 


400       THE  EMriKE  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

laud  or  Germany."  ^  "  Ten  years  ago  the  balance 
of  trade  was  against  the  country,  but  now  (1880) 
tlie  exports  are  tliirty-one  per  cent  over  imports.^ 
.  .  .  The  Americans  now  make  one  lii'th  of  tlie 
iron  and  one  fourth  of  the  steel  of  the  world,  .  .  . 
one  half  the  gold  and  one  lialf  the  silver  of  the 
world's  supply.  .  .  .  Taking,  in  gloho,  all  the  min- 
ing interests  of  the  world,  the  United  States  repre- 
sents thirty-six,  Great  Britain  tliiity-three,  and  the 
other  nations  tliirty-one  per  cent  of  the  total.^  .  .  . 
In  these  ten  years  farming  stock  has  increased 
thirty-three  per  cent.  In  1880  the  United  States 
had:  horses,  12,250,000;  cows,  33,600,000;  sheep, 
38,000,000 ;  hogs,  35,000,000.*  .  .  .  liailways  have 
doubled  in  ten  years.  .  .  .  This  is  more  than  tlie 
entire  increase  in  Europe  for  the  same  ten 
years."  ^ 

In  the  United  States  taxation  on  the  earnings 
of  the  people  is  9^  per  cent,  as  against  31  in  Italy, 
17'i  in  France,  and  12  in  Great  Britain,  and  15^ 
for  Europe.^ 

The  grain-supply  is  18i  per  cent  above  con- 
sumption, and  the  meat-supply  36  per  cent.  "  The 
United  States  produces  30  per  cent  of  the  grain 
and  30  per  cent  of  the  meat  of  the  world."  '^  In 
1870   the    wheat  crop  of  the  United  States  was 

1  Miilball,  pp.  117,  118.  *  Ibid.,  p.  111. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  109.  6  Ibid.,  pp.  113,  114. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  110,  111.  6  ibia.^  pp.  11^  78,  116. 

7  Ibid.,  p.  118. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FUTURE.       401 

231,000,000  bushels ;  in  1880,  496,000,000  bushels. 
In  1870  the  corn  was  992,000,000  bushels,  and  in 
1880  it  was  1,480,000,000  bushels. 

"  The  Americans  are  apparently  the  best  fed  of 
all  the  nations."  The  average  annual  consump- 
tion of  grain  to  the  person  is  40^^^^^  bushels,  while 
the  average  in  Europe  is  17^^^^^  bushels.  The  con- 
sumption of  meat  in  the  United  States  averages 
120  pounds  to  the  person,  and  in  Europe  57i 
pounds.i  "  Europe  has  a  deficit  of  380,000,000 
bushels  of  grain,  and  853,000  tons  of  meat  an- 
nually. The  United  States  have  a  surplus  of 
370,000,000  bushels  of  grain,  and  1,076,000  tons 
of  meat.2  .  .  .  The  increase  of  population  in  the 
United  States  exceeds  the  agarregate  number  of  in- 

Do        O 

habitants  in  three  kingdoms  of  Europe;  namely, 
Holland,  Denmark,  and  Portugal."  ^ 

The  praise  of  rivals  may  well  be  welcomed,  if 
not  coveted  ;  and  when  the  London  "  Times,"  not 
given  to  overestimates  of  American  prosperity, 
indulges  in  grateful  commendations  and  emi- 
nent hopes  for  the  United  States,  we  may  give 
its  words  the  full  weight  and  worth  of  their 
face.  In  one  of  its  issues  for  January,  1881,  it 
expresses  the  following  sentiments,  historic  and 
prophetic :  — 

"The  details  we  publish  this  morning  of  the 
principal  facts  elicited  by  last  year's  census  of  the 

1  Mulhall,  pp.  38,  39,  119.         2  ibid.,  p.  12.         3  Ibid.,  p.  6. 
26 


402  THE   EMTIUK   OF  THE   FUTL'KE. 

United  States  coiilinu  the  impression  the  original 
suniniary  of  results  produced.  A  nation  has  never 
exhibited  a  more  magnificent  picture  of  material 
progress  for  ten  years.  Since  1870  more  than 
eleven  and  a  half  millions  have  been  added  to  the 
population,  at  a  rate  of  thirty  per  cent  increase. 
E.\cei)t  China  and  Great  r>ritain  and  Piussia,  no 
government  can  count  more  subjects.  In  the 
number  of  citizens  moved  by  similar  impulses,  and 
recognizing  common  ends,  the  British  Empire  it- 
self yields  to  the  great  licpublic.  Fifty  millions 
of  human  beings  in  a  land  like  America  more  than 
match  the  eighty-six  millions  of  European  and 
Asiatic  Eussia.  The  four  hundred  and  twenty-five 
millions  of  China  are  not  to  be  compared  with 
them  as  a  force  among  mankind.  The  growth  of  a 
population  may  generally  be  understood  to  imply 
the  growth  of  wealth  and  resources.  As  each  cen- 
sus in  a  European  State  indicates  a  numerical 
advance,  it  may  for  the  most  part  be  inferred  that 
fresh  means  of  support  have  been  made  available. 
When,  however,  every  successive  census  in  the 
United  States  reveals  an  expansion  by  bounds 
and  leaps,  faith  in  the  instinct  of  human  nature 
not  to  multiply  beyond  the  power  of  existence  is 
scarcely  needed  to  reassure  anxiety.  The  granary 
which  is  to  feed  the  new  millions  which  have 
come,  the  millions  which  are  to  follow,  piles  its 
stores  for  the  whole  world  to  certify  them.  Each 
added  American  citizen  has  not  to  search  for  the 


.     THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE   FUTURE.  403 

livelihood  nature  hides  somewhere  or  other  for  all 
its  children.  He  is  born  or  imported  with  his 
inheritance  labelled  and  allotted.  He  has  but  to 
go  West,  or  North,  or  South ;  there  it  is  awaiting 
his  advent." 


404  CONCLUSION. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

CONCLUSION. 

WE  lind  ourselves  at  tlie  conclusion  of  an 
exceedingly  interesting  historical  study. 
As  wide,  and  covering  long  lapses  of  time,  and 
under  pressure  for  brevity,  the  survey  has  been 
necessarily  hurried,  liice  landscape  studies  from  an 
express  train  of  cars.  In  "The  Eailroad  and  the 
Farmer  "  Edward  Atkinson  remarks  that  "  this  na- 
tion has  a  function  in  the  world  that  is  yet  almost 
a  vision."  We  have  now  come  to  a  position  where 
the  visionary  may  be  seen  to  be  taking  on  the 
real. 

True  prophecy  is  involuntary  utterance  under 
divine  pressure  and  dictation  ;  but  there  are  human 
prophecies  almost  equally  irresistible  and  reliable. 
When  tlie  careful  student  of  events  notices  that  he 
is  following  an  unbroken  series  of  growths  in  a 
nation,  down  the  decades  of  years,  he  cannot  resist 
the  foreseeing  and  foretelling  of  events  as  logical 
sequents.  Such  was  that  inspiration  of  John 
Bright,  when  speaking  at  Birmingham,  on  the 
American  question,  in  1862,  —  midway  in  our 
darkest  hours  :  "  It  may  be  but  a  vision,  but  I  will 


CONCLUSION.  405 

cherish  it.  I  see  one  vast  confederation  stretching 
from  the  frozen  North  in  one  unbroken  line  to  the 
glowing  South,  and  from  the  wild  billows  of  the 
Atlantic  westward  to  the  calmer  waters  of  the  Pa- 
cific main  ;  and  I  see  one  people,  and  one  law,  and 
one  language,  and  one  faith,  and  over  all  that  wide 
continent  the  home  of  freedom,  and  a  refuge  for 
the  oppressed  of  every  race  and  of  every  clime."  ^ 

A  very  large  extent  of  land  in  the  public  do- 
main still  remains  in  Government  hands  unsold, 
awaiting  the  realization  of  John  Bright's  vision. 
2,889,000,000  acres  had  been  sold  down  to  June 
30,  1880.  At  the  same  time  1,270,000,000  acres 
remained  unsold,  —  about  three  sevenths  of  the 
whole  domain.  Or,  to  state  this  in  a  more  intel- 
ligible and  popular  form,  the  United  Kingdom 
—  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  —  has  an  area  of 
77,332,480  acres,  but  the  United  States  has  on 
hand,  unsold,  sixteen  times  that  amount  of  land. 
Our  Government  has  still,  in  an  absolutely  wild 
state,  over  which  the  public  surveyor  has  not  yet 
travelled  with  compass  and  chain,  thirteen  times 
the  area  of  the  United  Kingdom.  It  should,  how- 
ever, be  added  that  the  proportion  of  good  land 
sold  is  greater  than  the  proportion  of  it  in  the 
sections  unsold. 

Into  this  most  immense  national  field,  where 
such  unsold  areas  are  awaiting  the  coming  nation, 

1  Speeches  of  John  Bright,  M.  P.,  on  the  American  Question. 
Boston,  1865.     pp.  128,  129. 


406  CONCLUSION. 

we  are  moving  with  a  speed  exceeding  that  of  the 
leading  government  of  the  workl.  In  the  decade 
ending  with  1880  our  increase  in  population  was 
three  times  the  European  rate,  and  double  that  of 
England  and  Germany  —  the  leading  nations  of 
Europe  —  in  growth.  The  significance  of  this,  as 
to  our  future,  is  seen,  if  we  remember  our  excess 
of  area  over  tliat  of  the  United  Kingdom  as  above 
stated,  and  then  consider  that  in  1880  their  popu- 
lation was  only  thirty-five  millions  to  our  fifty 
millions. 

In  indulging  visions  of  our  national  growth,  al- 
lowance should  be  made  for  portions  of  our  terri- 
tory, uninviting  for  human  homes,  and  some  even 
uninhabitable.  Yet  since  Eastern  energy  has  set- 
tled Vermont,  and  Western  enterprise  has  conquered 
the  Great  American  Desert,  we  do  not  feel  con- 
strained to  yield  much  land  permanently  to  wild 
animals  and  American  Arabs.  Gladstone  takes 
the  quality  as  well  as  the  quantity  of  our  territory 
into  view  when  he  says  that  we  have  "  a  natural 
base  for  the  greatest  continuous  empire  ever  estab- 
lished by  man."  If  the  British  or  the  Eussian 
Empire  be  put  in  comparison  with  us  in  extent, 
either  is  double  our  own ;  but  when  we  consider 
how  much  of  the  latter  is  arctic  and  how  much 
of  the  former  is  arctic  and  torrid,  their  quantity 
must  be  estimated  in  view  of  our  quality.  The 
two  persons  to  a  square  mile  in  Asiatic  Eussia  give 
no  rich  promise  for  the  future  of  those  regions,  and 


CONCLUSION.  407 

British  North  America  is  less  promising ;  for,  in- 
cluding even  the  old  Canadas  as  well  as  the  Hud- 
son Bay  and  Polar  sections,  it  has  a  density  of  only 
1^2_4_  of  Q^  person  to  the  square  mile.  The  popula- 
tion in  Manitoba  in  1881  was  only  one  person  to 
two  square  miles,  in  British  Columbia  one  to 
seven,  and  in  the  Territories  one  to  forty. 

Moreover,  in  forecasting  the  empire  of  the 
future,  as  the  preceding  chapters  compel  us  to  do, 
it  is  to  be  well  considered  that  our  dominion  is  not 
fractional.  With  the  exception  of  Alaska,  it  lies 
in  one  undivided  body,  animated  practically  by  one 
blood,  using  one  national  tongue,  and  living  under 
one  law,  enacted  at  one  common  centre.  In  this  re- 
gard our  homogeneity  is  remarkable  as  in  contrast 
with  the  colonial  and  heterogeneous  composition 
of  the  British  Empire.  Her  composite  dominion 
lies  scattered  about  tlie  world  in  forty-one  parcels, 
not  including  the  home  kingdom, — in  Europe  three, 
in  America  eleven,  in  Africa  nine,  in  Asia  nine, 
in  Australia  nine.  The  advantage  from  this  unity 
for  symmetrical  development  is  beyond  estimate 
to  the  American  nation,  in  aid  of  consolidation  and 
vigor  of  national  life.  If,  instead  of  our  thirty-eight 
States,  constituting  a  federal  unit  in  one  undivided 
territory,  we  were  so  many  colonies  and  outlying 
provinces,  separated  each  from  every  other  by  in- 
tervening and  foreign  sovereignties,  each  having 
a  different  blood,  language,  religion,  and  the  rem- 
nants of  an  ancestral  government,  the   hope   of 


408  CONCLUSION. 

union,  prosperity,  and  perpetuity  would  be  ex- 
tremely frail.  Old  World  wars  and  the  overthrow 
of  governments  liave  sprung  from  tliese  military 
unions  of  discordant  and  antagonistic  materials. 
Tlie  rise  of  such  a  colony  or  dependency  toward 
the  higher  civilization  is  a  menace  to  the  head 
government  of  independence  and  home  rule. 

One  has  but  to  consider  this  amount  of  unsold 
country,  sixteen  times  the  area  of  the  United 
Kingdom  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  high  tide  of 
population  flowing  into  it  at  the  present  time,  to 
feel  that  we  have  a  magnificent  future,  and  near  at 
hand.  What  Samuel  Adams,  in  the  Congress  at 
Philadelphia,  wrote  to  James  Warren,  president  of 
the  Provincial  Congress  of  Massachusetts  in  1775, 
is  pre-eminently  true  to-day :  "  The  wheels  of 
Providence  seem  to  be  in  their  swiftest  motion." 
Our  increase  in  population,  natural  and  imported, 
is  now  about  two  millions  a  year ;  so  that  the 
growth  of  two  years  would  more  than  equal  all 
we  had  in  the  days  of  the  Eevolution. 

Such  increase  of  new  settlements  and  filling 
up  of  the  older  ones  are  without  precedent  or 
parallel  in  history.  What  a  Congressional  Com- 
mittee on  the  development  of  the  West  reported 
in  1816  might  be  repeated  to-day  with  emphasis: 
"The  rapidity  of  its  growth  is  such  that  even 
whilst  we  are  employed  in  drawing  the  portrait, 
the  features  continue  to  enlarge,  and  the  picture 
becomes   distorted."     In   September,   1884,   there 


CONCLUSION.  409 

was  spread  out,  near  Devil's  Lake,  Dakota,  an 
immense  wheat-field,  with  only  here  and  there 
a  rude  shelter  for  man  and  beast.  Within  nine 
months  a  city  had  sprung  up  at  the  terminus  of  a 
new  railroad  into  that  wheat-field,  containing  three 
hotels,  a  bank,  roller-rink,  five  lumber-yards,  two 
elevators,  two  churches,  and  numerous  stores,  with 
a  population  to  correspond,  and  had  already  handled 
eight  hundred  thousand  bushels  of  wheat.  In 
this  way,  to  use  the  words  of  a  very  eminent 
English  statesman,  America  "bravely  and  vigor- 
ously grapples  with  the  problem  of  making  a 
continent  into  a  State." 

There  is  a  suggestive  incident  floating  down  to 
us  from  the  English  Parliament  of  1846,  as  to 
our  rapidity  of  growth.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  then  dis- 
cussing the  corn-laws,  mentioned  two  young  and 
border  towns  in  America  that  would  by  and  by 
rival  Odessa  and  Danfzic  in  the  crrain  markets  of 
the  world ;  and  he  named  Chicago  and  Milwaukee. 
It  is  said  that  those  two  cities  had  never  before 
been  mentioned  in  the  House,  and  members 
whispered,  "What  did  he  call  them?"  "Oh, 
Indian  towns,"  was  the  reply.  That  was  only 
forty  years  ago,  and  now  the  two  places  have 
their  seven  hundred  thousand  and  two  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants.  English  dealers  in  grain 
now  catch  those  names  with  painful  distinctness 
sometimes,  when  America  rules  the  prices  of 
wheat. 


410  CONCLUSION. 

The  sudden  massing  of  peoples  in  newly  dis- 
covered or  newly  opened  countries  has  always 
marked  the  opening  of  a  new  era  in  human  pro- 
gress. At  such  times  the  race  gathers  fresh  force 
for  another  career,  and  begins  to  make  material  for 
another  volume  of  history.  The  reason  for  this 
lies  much  in  the  fact  that  those  who  emigrate  are 
usually  the  more  energetic  portion  of  a  community. 
They  are  the  spirited  and  ambitious,  who  weary 
of  grooves,  and  have  more  independence  and  ex- 
pectation than  they  have  reverence  and  tenacity 
for  the  past  or  content  with  the  present.  Our 
vast  expanses  of  newly  opened  country,  so  dwarf- 
ing the  nations  of  Europe  in  comparative  extent, 
and  the  millions  gathering  in  them  by  both  natural 
increase  and  immigration,  show  plainly  to  the 
statesman  that  we  are  working  on  the  crude 
foundations  of  a  new  empire,  unprecedented  in 
extent,  population,  and  wealth.  For  a  century 
and  a  half  it  was  doubted  whether  the  English 
Colonies  could  rise  above  suppressed  dependencies 
under  Great  Britain,  and  break  the  will  of  Pitt  by 
making  a  nail  for  a  horseshoe  in  America. 

It  was  by  slow  growth  that  the  knowledge  of 
the  existence  of  the  United  States  as  a  nation 
became  common  in  Europe.  "Once  a  colony  al- 
ways a  colony  "  was  an  axiom  then  as  it  is  to-day 
in  the  Old  World.  In  1797  John  Quincy  Adams 
entered  Berlin  as  American  Minister  to  Prussia. 
He  was  questioned  at  the  gates  by  a  dapper  lieu- 


CONCLUSION.  411 

tenant,  who  did  not  know,  until  one  of  his  private 
soldiers  explained  to  him,  what  the  United  States 
of  America  were.^  When  in  the  same  city  George 
Bancroft  put  before  the  Emperor  William,  as 
umpire  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain,  the  Northwestern  Boundary  Question, 
the  unknown  Ptepublic  had  become  a  nation  in 
the  first  rank ;  and  to-day  it  heads  the  list  in  the 
financial  valuations  of  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

Eeasonable  anticipations  gf  our  future,  fairly 
put,  seem  visionary  and  even  boastful  to  foreign 
statesmen,  and  almost  as  much  so  to  our  own 
provincial  and  untravelled  citizens.  A  playful 
allusion  to  our  national  bird  will  neutralize  with 
many  a  chapter  of  august  facts ;  nevertheless,  that 
bird  is  as  yet  only  in  the  callow  and  downy 
stage  of  development. 

When  Canon  Farrar  was  lately  leaving  America, 
he  put  this  glowing  passage  among  his  farewell 
words  :  "  I  have  stood  astonished  before  the  growth, 
the  power,  the  irresistible  advance,  the  Niagara 
rush  of  sweeping  energy,  the  magnificent  appar- 
ent destiny  of  this  nation,  wondering  whereunto  it 
would  grow." 

Herein  is  forced  on  us  the  great  duty  of  the 
hour.  We  are  making  a  nation,  and  hardly  mid- 
way in  the  enterprise,  and  no  work  more  sublime, 
no  call  to  any  labor  higher  and  holier,  may  justly 
divert  us  or  claim  our  forces, 

1  Morse's  John  Quincy  Adams,  p.  24. 


412  CONCLUSION. 

The  providences  gone  before  and  preparing  the 
way,  the  raw  material  on  hand  by  a  natural  or 
divine  preparation,  the  work  so  auspiciously  be- 
gun and  tiie  success  attained,  and  the  grand  op- 
j)ortunity  or  chance  which  beckons  us  on  to  a 
great  future,  all  declare  one  fact,  —  that  the  Ameri- 
can people  have  an  offer  to  make  a  nation  to  or- 
der. Separated  from  the  old  nations  by  an  ocean, 
and  in  a  land  unencumbered  by  traditional  and 
inherited  regimes ;  with  none  of  their  wreck  and 
debris  on  our  new  building-ground,  and  in  ad- 
vance of  the  fossiliferous  period  of  governments, 
we  may  build  to  our  own  model.  Inheriting  all 
the  knowledge  and  experience,  but  none  of  the 
authority  or  dictation  of  preceding  nations,  in  an 
advanced  era  when  civil  society  has  both  the  right 
and  the  duty  of  improved  models,  and  in  a  domain 
new,  inviting  to  human  homes,  and  ample  beyond 
all  precedent,  the  human  race  never  elsewhere  had 
so  good  a  hope  of  forward  movement.  The  non- 
governing  masses  of  the  Old  World  hang  in  anxiety 
on  our  experiment. 

AVhile  such  issues  are  pending  in  our  struggle 
to  make  a  continent  into  a  State,  we  must  not  be 
persuaded  to  fritter  away  our  forces  in  regulating 
and  reconstructinfT  unfortunate  and  inferior  sections 
of  the  Old  World.  While  we  have  a  Chicago  and 
San  Francisco  to  build,  it  is  not  for  us  to  rebuild 
Thebes  and  Carthage.  And  with  hints  now  and 
then,  in  our  cities  and  on  our  frontier,  of  mediae- 


CONCLUSION.  413 

val  civilization  in  the  United  States,  furnished  by 
nihilists,  anarchists,  socialists,  and  atheists,  the 
question  grows  with  our  country  and  its  dangers, 
how  much  conservating  and  elevating  power  we 
can  wisely  export. 

The  fact  must  not  be  forgotten  that  when  a 
monarchical  government  weakens  or  dissolves,  the 
restoration  of  order  usually  lies  in  the  line  of  more 
liberty  for  the  people.  So  revolution  under  mon- 
archy is  never  without  a  possible  remedy,  and  the 
final  rest  and  ultimate  hope  are  in  a  government 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people.  If  that  anchor- 
age fail,  all  goes  adrift  on  the  sea  of  anarchy.  The 
American  people  have  now  arrived  where  ^the  old 
question  confronts  them  :  Are  a  people  competent 
for  self-government  ?  Only  with  a  fair  and  bal- 
ancing proportion  of  intellectual  and  moral  force 
in  the  body  politic ;  and  during  the  last  two  or 
three  decades  our  Government  has  had  some  sug- 
gestions of  great  gravity  in  this  direction.  With 
two  millions  of  voters  who  cannot  read  and  write 
their  own  ballots,  the  United  States  may  well  con- 
sider why  there  are  so  many  dead  republics. 

The  marked  weaknesses  of  the  Eepublic  show 
themselves  in  our  illiteracy,  immorality,  and  irre- 
ligion ;  and  the  one  continental  work  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  will  tax  the  wisest  and  most  benevolent 
and  sacrificing,  —  to  guard  the  nation  against  these 
dangers.  This  is  to  be  said  more  emphatically 
because,  under  our  system  of  gcvernment,  much 


414  CONCLUSION. 

of  this  work  must  be  done,  not  by  statute  and  tax- 
ation, but  by  the  benevolent  hand  and  voluntary 
contributions  of  the  people.  The  immensity  of 
the  field  and  the  success  or  failure  of  the  Ameri- 
can endeavor  call  for  a  most  discriminating  pro- 
portional division  of  all  our  charitable  contril)utions 
and  endowments  and  benevolent  work. 

Nor  will  it  be  enough  for  the  good  and  the  de- 
vout to  hope  and  trust.  There  is  too  much  lazy 
reliance  on  Providence.  That  will  not  save  the 
Eepublic.  The  Christian  creed  and  practice  of 
such  could  be  improved  by  using  so  much  pagan- 
ism as  was  hinted  by  Jupiter  to  the  stalled  and 
praying  wagoner,  —  to  put  his  own  shoulder  to  the 
wheel.  When  the  Boston  Port  Bill  was  announced 
to  the  Connecticut  Assembly,  it  "  appointed  a  day 
of  humiliation  and  prayer,  and  ordered  an  inven- 
tory to  be  taken  of  the  cannon  and  military  stores," 
—  a  very  sensible  combination  of  forces  in  saving 
one's  country.  And  generally,  in  the  Colonies,  on 
that  event  so  menacing  the  welfare  of  the  country, 
"  bells  were  muffled  and  tolled  from  morning  till 
night,  flags  were  kept  at  half-mast,  streets  were 
dressed  in  mourning,  public  buildings  and  shops 
were  draped  in  black,  large  congregations  filled 
the  churches."  ^  So  the  Congress  in  session  at 
Philadelphia  made  address  to  the  people  by  the 
pen  of  Richard  Henry  Lee  :  "  Above  all  things  we 
earnestly  entreat  you  with  devotion  of  spirit,  peni- 

1  Frothingliam's  Rise  of  the  Republic,  p.  324. 


CONCLUSION.  415 

tence  of  heart,  and  amendment  of  life,  to  humble 
yourselves  and  implore  the  power  of  Almighty 
God."  And  when  Cornwallis  surrendered,  Con- 
gress most  properly  "  went  in  procession  to  church 
to  give  thanks  to  Almighty  God  for  the  victory." 

But  with  all  this  religious  devotion  and  fasting 
and  thanksgiving,  no  people  ever  so  labored  and 
sacrificed  for  a  desired  end,  as  if  the  result  rested 
on  their  struggles.  We  are  yet  in  the  founding  of 
the  Eepublic,  and  by  no  means  past  the  era  of 
anxiety,  with  the  memory  and  admonition  that 
of  all  the  European  republics,  first  and  last,  only 
three  survive.  Almost  all  the  members  of  the 
republican  family  of  government  are  dead,  as  of 
a  short-lived  race.  They  have  died,  moreover,  of 
illiteracy,  immorality,  and  irreligion.  I  have  al- 
ready said  that  the  genius  of  our  Government  does 
not  provide  by  constitution  or  statute  for  moral 
or  religious  qualities  in  the  people,  or  for  the  high- 
est institutions  of  learning.  It  approbates  and  en- 
courages these,  but  leaves  them  to  be  secured  by 
the  voluntary  and  benevolent  action  of  the  people. 
In  later  years  wealth,  scholarship,  science,  and 
aesthetics  have  gained  patronage,  endowment,  and 
popularity  in  great  advance  of  those  personal  qual- 
ities which  ornament  life  as  the  beatitudes,  and 
crown  manhood. 

Very  much  work  remains  to  be  done,  and  indeed 
is  constantly  accumulating,  for  which  wide  popular 
contributions  and  single  princely  gifts  must  lay 


416  CONCLUSION. 

the  foundations.  The  church,  the  college,  and  the 
professional  school  must  have  early  and  command- 
ing position  in  the  new  country  west  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  as  they  did  in  the  country  east  of  the 
Alleghauies  when  it  was  new,  if  we  would  have 
men  come  to  the  front  who  are  competent  and 
worthy  to  found  and  lead  a  State.  It  is  well 
enough,  and  perhaps  timely,  to  repeat  here  what 
Benton  said  in  1844,  in  his  speech  in  the  Senate, 
on  Texas,  or  Disunion :  "  Superficial  readers  be- 
lieve it  was  the  military  men  who  destroyed  the 
Eoman  Eepublic.  No  such  thing.  It  was  the 
politicians  who  did  it, — factious,  corrupt,  intriguing 
politicians ;  destroying  public  virtue  in  their  mad 
pursuit  after  office;  destroying  their  rivals  by 
crime ;  deceiving  and  debauching  the  people  for 
votes ;  and  bringing  elections  into  contempt  by 
the  frauds  and  violence  with  which  they  were 
conducted."  ^ 

Honored  names  have  gone  into  our  new  coun- 
try, as  the  people  have  carried  the  nation  that 
way,  and  have  taken  their  place  in  American  his- 
tory in  philanthropic,  humane,  educational,  and 
Christian  institutions,  just  as  the  names  we  now 
honor  and  love  gained  their  places  in  the  colonial 
era,  and  in  the  years  following  the  colonial.  No 
patriots,  in  the  field  or  the  forum,  can  be  more 
worthily  called  the  founders  of  the  Eepublic ;  and 
if  we  would  continue  to  build  as  wisely  as  the 

1  Benton's  Thirty  Years'  View,  vol.  ii.  p.  615. 


CONCLUSION.  417 

fathers,  such  meu  must  be  found ;  and  they  must 
be  multiplied,  too,  for  an  area  five  times  as  large 
and  for  a  population  fifteen*  times  as  large  as  those 
fathers  had  in  the  lievolutionary  epoch.  It  is 
all  most  filial  and  reverent  to  enclose  expensively 
Jacob's  Well,  and  erect  a  noble  monument  there 
to  the  patriarcli.  Meanwhile  the  great  American 
caravan,  moving  west  with  the  tread  of  a  nation, 
must  have  other  wells  and  drinking  fountains 
provided. 

No  nation  ever  yet  had  so  successful  a  past  in 
a  period  so  brief.  In  one  century  we  have  gone 
up  from  a  colonial  state,  where  the  British  Minis- 
try were  unwilling  that  we  should  manufacture  a 
teacup,  to  stand  in  the  first  rank  of  manufacturing 
a  nation.  And  yet  we  seem  to  be  but  in  the  be- 
ginning of  our  career,  as  a  ship  outward  bound  for 
the  farthest  ocean,  which  is  still  in  sight  of  home 
headlands,  and  has  just  laid  her  course.  No 
nation  ever  had  so  auspicious  a  future.  Still 
young  and  crude,  in  the  gristle  rather  than  the 
bone,  our  possible  history  is  mostly  before  us,  in 
tempting  susceptibilities  and  rude,  massive  mate- 
rial. No  nation  ever  came  so  near  to  having 
innumerable  possibilities  and  unlimited  area  for 
building  itself. 

St.  Peter's  at  Eome  was  begun  nearly  four  hun- 
dred years  ago  — 1506  —  and  is  yet  unfinished. 
The  building  of  it  still  goes  on,  according  to  its 

original  and  grand  plan.     Twelve  generations  of 
27 


418  CONCLUSION. 

workmeu  have  come  and  gone  over  its  scaffoldings, 
and  still  the  work  goes  ou  with  a  constantly  new 
grandeur  and  glory.     All  this  is  architectural. 

The  American  structure,  sacred  and  civil,  the 
building  of  the  State,  was  begun  nearly  three  hun- 
dred years  ago.  And  still  the  work  goes  on.  Nine 
generations  of  workmen  have  come  and  gone  over 
its  scaffoldings,  and  we  are  the  tenth,  and,  like  our 
fathers,  building  better  than  we  know.  Occasion- 
ally, in  our  poor  apprentice  work,  and  through  the 
haze  of  our  poor  eyes,  there  comes  to  view  a  new 
corridor  or  aisle,  turret  or  dome,  and  often  ampler 
interior  courts  ;  and  so  there  opens  up,  wider  and 
deeper,  the  grandeur  of  the  architecture,  as  on  a 
plan  of  men  inspired  for  statemanship.  So  majes- 
tically has  the  building  of  the  American  State 
gone  on. 

In  his  first  inaugural  Washington  said  :  "  Every 
step  by  which  they  [the  Americans]  have  advanced 
to  the  character  of  an  independent  nation  seems  to 
have  been  distinguished  by  some  token  of  provi- 
dential agency."  It  is  for  us  to  look  back  and  see 
these  divine  tokens  in  what  has  been  accomplished 
in  founding  the  State,  and  so  discover  the  plan  on 
which  we  are  building.  So  the  work  already  ac- 
complished will  foretell  our  future  labors,  which 
prophetic  statesmen  have  outlined.  It  is  for  us 
to  study  and  comprehend  all  this,  and  hasten  the 
enterprise,  —  the  building  of  the  Empire  of  the 
Future. 


CONCLUSION.  419 

The  world  of  high  art  cannot  afford  to  leave  St. 
Peter's  unfinished,  nor  the  world  of  highest  civili- 
zation the  building  of  the  United  States  of  To- 
morrow. And  when  this  American  structure  is 
finished,  it  shall  be  said  of  it,  as  Byron  says  of  St. 
Peter's,  though  with  an  import  infinitely  deeper 
and  nobler :  — 

"  But  thou,  of  temples  old  and  altars  new, 
Standest  alone,  with  nothing  like  to  thee." 


INDEX. 


Page 
Adams,  John,  on  America's  growth  and  mission      .     .     .      364-366 

John  Quincy,  anecdote  of       410,  411 

Admiralty  jurisdiction,  slow  movement  west 301-306 

Alaman,    Lucas,    predicts    the    absorption   of    Mexico   by   the 

United  States 386 

Alaska,  purchase,  cost,  amount,  and  worth  of 38-41 

shore  line  of 15 

Alaslcans,  Christian  Missions  among,  neglected 39 

Alleghauies,  large  cities  beyond 265 

America,  the  Fifth  Empire         358,  359 

as  compared  with  British  or  Russian  territory    .     .     .     406,  407 

American  Desert,  an  unfortunate  term 93 

and  Pike's,  Astor's,  and  Long's  expeditions       ....  97-101 

and  McDuifie 104 

and  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  " 104,105 

and  the  "Westminster  Review" 108-112 

and  Washington  Irving 105-108 

and  School  Geographies, —  Woodbridge  and  Willard,  Olney, 

Smith,  Colton 101-104,  109 

States  occupied  bj',  and  population  and  cereals  of     .     .  133-135 

driven  before  immigrants 127, 134, 136 

Jefferson's  original  mistake  on 96 

of  Edward  I.  Wallace  and  Governor  Simpson       ....      108 

professional  opinions  on 114-119 

reduced 112-120 

yields  to  farmers 127 

American  Independence  only  second  to  Christianity  in  impor- 
tance       372 

law  followed  the  English 306-308 

passion  for  more  land       27,  44-46 

structure  when  finished,  what 419 

Americans,  amusing  ignorance  of,  as  to  their  own  country     .  18-20 
Aranda,  Count,  regards  the  Republic  as  a  Colossus   .     .     .    380,  381 


422  INDEX. 

Page 

Army,  standing,  in  United  States  and  Europe 341,  342 

Astor's  trading  vessel  at  Chicago,  the  first 70 

fur  trade  at  Cliicago 71 

Aztec,  Mexican,  and  Pueblo  life 190-193 


Balance  of  power  gone  West 309-311 

Uaiiditti,  on  the  border 169-173 

Uannack,  Montana,  Lynch  law  in 221-224 

Baptiste,   Point  de  Saible,  first  settler  at  Chicago,   and  first 

owner 59, 60 

Benton,    Thomas   H.,    in   Eastern    hostility   to   Western    land 

sales 283,  284 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  and  his  "course  of  empire"  ....      360,  361 
Bingham,  William,  and  lands  in  Province  of  Maine  ....     150 

Border  men,  many  of,  the  refuse  of  society 174,   175 

Boroughs,  Sir  John,  on  England's  sovereigntj'  of  the  seas    .     .     395 
Brackinridge,    Hugh   Henry,   poem   on   The    Rising   Glory  of 

America 366 

Bright,  John,  on  America  as  the  strongest  government  in  the 

world 38G,  387 

vision  of  American  future 404,  405 

British  America,  Pacific  coast  of 16 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  prophetic  views  of  America  .     .     .      358,  359 
Bushnell,  Dr.,  on  home  travel 351 


California  hides  and  the  railway       318,  319 

"Camillus  "  on  the  Louisiana  purchase 270 

Canada,  education  in,  priestly 206 

Cartwright,  John,  the  colonies  must  control  the  continent    .     .     370 

Case}',  James  P.,  shoots  James  King 246 

Castelar,  Erailio,  that  America  will  lead  the  world  in  civiliza- 
tion   388,  389 

Cattle-drive,  and  distances  of  "out  West" 20-23 

Cattle  shipped  at  Salina,  Kan 332,  333 

Cerisier  on  American  influence  in  Europe 377 

Chapman  on  the  future  of  America 357 

Chevalier,  Michel,  on  the  United  States  as  leading  the  nations  387,388 

on  the  growth  of  the  United  States 332 

Chicago,  Ancient  (1778-1833) 53-92 

and  churches , 69 

and  San  Francisco  R.  R.,  no  room  for,  in  Europe ...      25,  26 

and  the  Indian  Council  in,  1831-33 78 

and  the  school  system       69,  70,  89, 90 


INDEX,  423 

Page 

Chicago,  as  seen  by  Colonel  Long  in  1831 68 

becomes  a  town  in  1833 66,  67 

Canal  to  the  Illinois 71 

Directory  for  1830 69 

early  quiet  of 63 

English  title  to,  extinguished  in  1795 60 

first  occupant  of 58 

in  1809  in  Wisconsin  Territory 71 

in  1825,  what 68 

massacre  at 65,  66 

not  easily  found 67 

on  early  trapper  route 56 

once  in  Virginia,  1778 58 

post-office,  once  and  now 84-87 

route  to,  explored  b}'  Logan,  1718 56 

rush  of  growth  in,  1830-36 71 

valuation,  extravagance,  and  debts  of 71,  72 

■wheat  trade  begins  in  1838 75,  88 

Chicago's  first  saloon-keeper 60,  61 

growth  not  so  singular 54 

Chicagoes,  many  of,  still  rising 54 

Clark,  Gen.  George  Rogers,  conquers  the  Northwest  Territory  .       57 
Colleges  and  churches  indispensable  for  the  West  ....  214-218 

are  they  too  early  and  too  many  ? 216-218 

earh'  on  the  frontier 211,  212 

real  and  sham,  out  West 216 

Colonies,  claim  of,  to  Western  lands,  and  how  settled      .     .      43-45 

Colonists  of  California,  many  corrupt 175 

Colorado,  and  some  European  areas 10 

Commerce,  salt  and  fresh  water 300,301 

Western,  and  the  Courts 301-306 

Common  schools  and  any  new  State 203 

Conclusion 404-419 

Cowley,  Address  of,  to  the  New  World 358 

Crimes,  capital,  in  Texas 172 

Cumberland  Mountains  invite  to  farming 338 


Dakota  and  some  European  areas 10 

Daniel,  Samuel,  on  the  future  of  the  English  language  .  .  .  357 
D'Argenson,   Marquis,    predicts   very   much   for    the    United 

States ' 361-364 

Davis,  Jefferson,  suppression  of  Lieutenant  Stevens's  Report 

on  lands  of  the  Northwest 126 

Debts,  national,  of  United  States  and  Europe  compared   .     .     .  341 


424  INDEX. 

Page 

Pocivilization  in  early  Canada 179,  180 

Def^eiKTiition  of  hnniigrants  in  tlitir  families       .      177,  178,  198,  199 

Desert  lajuls,  sale  of 135,  1.36 

De  Soto,  grant  of  land  to 138,  139 

Do  Tocqueviile,  and  the  United  States  as  covering  the  conti- 
nent        383-385 

Dinisdale's  book,  •'Vi,^ri!antes  of  Montana" 220,227 

Discovery  of  America  and  ntility  of,  topic  for  a  prize       .     ,     .     366 

Distances,  Surprising,  in  the  United  States 18-26 

Domain,  I'liblic,  extent  of 399 

Donations,  greatest  results  of,  in  the  West 312,  313 

Dorciiester  and  a  railroad 348 

Dubuque's,  Julion,  Spanish  grant 147 

Duty  of  the  hour 411,  412 


Eartiiqitake  at  New  Madrid  amusingly  explained    .     .      207,  208 

East,  incredulity  of,  about  the  West 266,  267 

and  West,  early  rivalry  of 47-51 

and  West,  line  on  the  United  States,  half-way  point  of .     .       25 
defended  by  Webster  in  his  great  Reply  to  Hayne    .     .  284-288 

opposes  internal  improvements 288-291 

Eastern  benevolence  fully  responsive  to  facts 218-220 

hostility  to  the  West  conceded  by  Webster  ....       287,  288 

Jealousy  and  Neglect  of  the  West 263-313 

men  and  frontier  work,  a  failure  with  Indians 62 

statesmen  provincial 291,  292 

Education  in  early  Louisiana  Territory 203 

spirit  of,  heroic  on  frontier 214-216 

Emigration  is  moral  exposure 178,  194-197 

Emigrants  of  old  often  inferior 178 

of  fortune  and  American  nomads 197 

usually  the  most  energetic 410 

Empire  of  the  Future 355-403 

Englishmen  in  the  United  States 18 

Erie  Canal,  origin  and  opening  of,  in  1825 48 

European  and  American  distances  contrasted 18-25 

Events  crowding  on  each  other  in  the  United  States    .     .       363,  364 

Exports  of  the  United  States  in  1880 335 

Expresses  and  stages,  early 47 

Ezekiel  the  prophet,  —  did  he  ever  see  a  locomotive  ?       .       339,  340 


Farm  land  of  United  States  and  of  Europe  equal 341 

Farm  lands,  soldiers  not  good  judges  of 125 


INDEX.  425 


Farms  in  Illinois  before  and  after  the  railroad  came    .    .      321,  322 

now  only  one  sixth  of  our  arable  land 337,  340 

Farrar,  Canon,  and  his  surprise    .     .  411 

Florida,  early  condition  and  the  purchase  of  by  the  United 

States 33,  34 

Food  supplies,  mainly  from  the  West 265,  26G 

Foote's  Resolution,  hostile  to  the  West      .     .     .     .     .     .      283,  284 

Fort  Dearborn  built  at  Chicago,  1803 61 

Fort  Miamis,  founding  of,  unknown 56 

Forsyth,  Robert  A.,  a  teacher  in  Chicago        70 

France  sells  Louisiana  to  the  United  States 30-32 

loses  North  America  on  Plains  of  Abraham 28 

Franciscan  Jlissions  in  California 146 

Franklin,  B.,  anecdote  of,  and  American  Desert      .     .     .      136,  137 
Freight,  costs  of,  by  wagon,  canal,  and  railroad  in  New  York  323,  324 

cost  of,  over  the  plains  before  railroads 320,  321 

on  flour  from  Minneapolis  to  New  York 336 

Frontier,  condition  of,  before  the  Revolution 42,  43 

Gadsden  Purchase,  amount,  cost,  worth,  and  policy  of  .     .     37,  38 

Galiani's  great  hope  from  America 372,  373 

Galisteo,  an  incident  at 169-172 

Gallatin,  Albert,  on  Oregon  as  a  separate  government      .       279,  280 
Geograplu'  of  the  United  States,  early  defects  of     ...     .      94-96 

Georgia  seizes  the  public  land 152,  153 

Gladstone  on  America  as  leading  the  nations       .     393,  394,  396,  397 

Gorges  and  IMason's  grant  of  wild  land 139,  140 

Government  as  a  fur  trader,  and  fails 62 

natural  to  Americans 245,  246,  253-255,  258 

Grain  and  mineral  region  in  Southwest  equal  to  Great  Britain 

and  Ireland 338 

Grants  of  land  by  the  United  States 155-158 

Gregoire,  Abbe,  presages  high  destiny  to  the  United  States  382,  383 

"  Great  American  Desert,"  the 93-137 

made  green 340 

Great  Salt  Lake,  increase  of  water  in 130 

Growth  of  population  by  per  cents  in  some  States 342 

of  the  nation  East  and  West  compared 312,  313 

in  population 408 

remarkable  case  of 408,  409 

Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  treaty  of,  and  amount  of  territory  conveyed      12 
Guarie,  tirst  occupant  of  Chicago 58 

Half-breed  life  and  families 180-182 

Hartley,  David,  extremely  hopeful  of  the  American  future    381,  382 


426  INDEX. 

Page 

Hartford  Convention  and  Western  growth 273-277 

Ilawes,  Dr.  Joul,  and  call  to  Cliicaf,'o 87,  88 

Ilazen,  Gen.  W.  15.,  on  limits  of  farming  land  West    .     .     .  120-126 
Home  missionary  work  \>y  the  United  Stales  for  Great  Britain  12, 13 

work  for  Americans  atjiiiidant 212,  413 

Horse-tliicf,  a  general  term  for  a  desperate  criminal     ....     253 
Hunt,  Wilson  1'.,  expedition  of,  a  calamity  to  Astor  and  to 
American  geography 108,  109 


Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal  Company 70 

Land  Company  and  immense  purchase,  1773   •.     .     .     .     55,  56 

Land  Company  of  1773 56,  57 

owes  growth  to  railway' 314,  315 

lUitcrac}'  in  Illinois  and  Missouri,  why 212 

in  Southwest  under  Papal  education         207 

Immigration  to  Chicago  great  in  1831-34 72-74 

to  the  United  States  in  fifteen  j'ears,  and  in  sixty     .       376,  377 

Immigrants,  false  view  of,  corrected 277 

hardships  of 208,  209 

Indian  land  purchase,  a  great        56,  57 

sale  of  lands  to  private  persons  forbidden  by  Congress  in 
1781 57 

Indians  at  Chicago  in  1831 78 

Independence  of  American  Colonies  predicted  by  Sir  Thomas 
Browne 359 

Introduction       vii,  viii 

Iowa  owes  growth  to  railway 315,  316 

Irrigation  from  the  Missouri,  Colorado,  and  Columbia      .    .     .    340 


Jefferson,  Thomas,  on  United  States  as  a  model  for  the  world    383 
wisdom  of,  in  the  purchase  of  Louisiana 275 


Kansas  cattle  ranges  in  1870       21-23 

Kentucky  neglected  by  the  East 282 

King,  James,  shot  in  San  Francisco 246 

Kinzie  house  of  Chicago,  romantic  histoiy  of 90-92 

John,  first  white  family  at  Chicago 61 


Land  grants  by  France  in  the  Southwest       148-149 

grants  confirmed  in  California  and  New  Mexico    .     .     .  142-147 
grants  by  Spanish,  French,  and  English  governments     139-150 


INDEX.  427 

Page 

Land  of  the  United  States  unsold 405 

"rings"  in  old  times 140,  141 

seizure  in  old  times  also 152-155 

Landholdings,  large  Eastern 268,  269 

Large,  in  the  United  States 138-168 

large,  near  Washington 141 

Las  Animas,  first  common  school  in       213 

Latrobe,  Charles  Joseph,  and  Chicago  in  1833 83 

Law.  John,  and  his  Mississippi  bubble       148,  149 

Leadville,  rough  life  and  moral  forces  in 260-262 

Lewis  and  Clark's  expedition  in  1803 96,  97 

Locomotive  as  a  home  missionary 212,  213 

in  Las  Animas 342-344 

"  London  Times  "  on  the  United  States  census  of  1880     .       401-403 

Louisiana,  extent  of,  westward 30-32 

land  sales  in,  opposed 269-273 

purchase  of,  by  the  United  States 29-32 

purchase,  hostility  to,  by  Josiah  Quincy 293-300 

quiet  transfer  of,  to  the  United  States 392,  393 

sold  to  the  United  States  by  Napoleon 30 

settlements  in,  dangerous  to  the  Union 271 

secret  sale  of,  by  France  to  Spain 29 

Lynch  Law    ..." 221-262 

and  border  society 259-262 

continuance  of,  in  Montana 238 

demands  for,  in  Montana 221-226 

in  early  Kentucky 257,  258 

in  San  Francisco,  origin  of 238-244 

more  common  than  supposed 252,  253 

reasons  for 228-230,  234,  244-246,  258,  259 

cited  in  "  Boston  Review  " 227,228 


Macnamara  plot  in  California 147 

Mail  facilities  for  the  West  refused 282 

Mails  and  letters,  early  provisions  for 47 

Marquette  at  Chicago 54 

Mduvaises  Terres 113,  115-119 

McDuffie,  hostilitj-  to  Western  improvements 287 

Mexican  addition    to  the  United  States,   how  much  ....       12 

why,  and  what 34-36 

Military  reservations  of  wild  lands 44 

Mississippi  and  Missouri  Valley,  the  extent  of 13,  14 

Mississippi  Valley  and  Roman  Empire  in  comparative  areas      13,  14 
Mowry,  Sylvester,  on  life  in  Arizona  and  Sonora 173 


428  INDEX. 

Page 

Napoleon's  judgment  on  the  American  future 390 

Niilional  above  State  power 311,312 

National  cxix  lulitures  in  United  States  and  Europe  compared  .     341 

Nevada  City,  Montana,  Lyncli  law  in 224 

New  Kiigiand,  and  sale  of  Western  lands 48-50 

New  Jerusalem  in  America 359,  300 

New  Mexico  long  neglected  by  Christians 213,  214 

New  Orleans  as  a  walled  town 20G 

early  education  in 203 

New  Spain  and  Lieutenant  Pike's  description  of     ...     .  175,  176 
Northern  Pacific  K.  K.,  belt  and  area  of 11 


Ohio  Companj'  and  Lynch  law 255-257 

and  common  schools 200 

land  grants  to 267-269 

opposition  to 268 

Ohio  Land  Company,  the  first,  and  crown  grant  of  land  to    149,  150 

the  second,  and  Eastern  opposition  to 49 

the  first,  1749 44 

"  Old  times  "  sighed  for 336,337 

Ordinance  of  1787  in  Ohio,  and  education 200,  201 

Oregon  as  a  separate  government,  favored  by  some     .     .       276-280 

Oregon  before  and  after  the  railway 331,  332 

earh'  excursions  to,  and  trials  of 19 

negfected  by  the  East 281 

no  legislation  on  till  1843 280 

Outlawry  in  the  new  country 172-199 

Outlaws  of  Montana,  arrest,  trial,  and  execution  of     .     .       230-238 


Pacific  coast  of  the  United  States,  length  of 14,  15 

Paley,  William,  regards  the  extent  of  empire  as  unprecedented     381 

Papal  control  of  education  in  Louisiana 203-205 

Parliament,  transfer  of,  to  the  Colonies 370,  371 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  prediction  as  to  Chicago  and  Milwaukee    .     .       87 

Penn,  William,  on  our  country  as  magnificent 390 

Philadelphia  to  be  "  the  Athens  of  mankind  " 361 

Pike,  Lieut.  Z.  M.,  on  the  "  American  Desert  "      ....      97,  98 

Pioneering  in  Education 200-220 

Pioneers  of  the  present,  worthj'  of  highest  honor 416 

early,  hard  life  of 50-52 

Plains  of  Abraham  and  Bunker  Hill,  seventeen  years  apart  .  363 
"  Population  Company''  of  Virginia  and  sharp  practice  .  154,  155 
Population,  centre  of,  in  United  States,  where 265 


INDEX.  429 


Population,  increase  of,  in  the  United  States  as  compared  with 

European 405,  406 

Populations  of  the  new  country  mixed 176,  177 

Porter,  Rev.  Dr.  J.,  and  Chicago  in  1833 78 

Powell  Major  J.  W.,  on  arid  lands  and  rainfall 127-129 

Pownall,  Thomas,  who 373 

on  the  grand  destinies  of  the  United  States       ....  373-376 

Prairies  of  Illinois  in  1840 24 

Price,  Dr.  Richard,  on  America  as  the  refuge  of  mankind    .     .     371 

Printing-office,  first  in  Canada,  1720,  and  sent  out 20G 

Private  schools  before  the  public  one 202,  203 

Prophecies  of  our  growth,  logical  deductions       ....       355,  356 

Providence  the  founder  of  the  United  States 418 

Public  lands  and  common  schools 200,  201 

QuiNCY,  Josiah,  journey  of,  from  Boston  to  Washington      .    .     347 
on  the  West 293-300 

Railroads,  amusing  dread  of 348 

and  the  workinginan 336 

and  religious  and  theological  harmony 351-353 

as  a  power  for  national  defence 344.  345 

equalize  prices 323,  324 

bring  the  country  together 326 

indispensable  to  develop  the  West 314 

promote  travel,  harmony,  and  so  insure  the  Union    .     .     .     346 

a  great  power  for  American  civilization 342 

and  the  exports        335 

bring  markets  near 329-331 

earlier,  might  have  saved  the  peace  of  the  country  .     .     .     349 

future  growth  of 337 

have  made  the  Pacific  States  possible  and  prosperous     .     .     353 

growth  of,  in  the  West  illustrated 339 

in  Missouri 328,  329 

when  opened 326,  327 

a  binding  power  for  the  Union 344,  348 

utilize  natural  values 321 

Wyoming  and  the  live  stock 334 

Railway  System  of  the  West 314-354 

Ranges,  ranches,  and  stock-farms 159-168 

Rapidity  of  settlement 408,  409 

Raynal,  Abbe,  prediction  of,  and  offered  prize 366 

Republic,  the  weakness  of  our 413,  414 

Republics,  dead,  a  warning 415,  416 


430  INDEX. 

Page 

Roads,  national  and  military 47 

Kocky  Mountains  placed  wrong  by  Eastern  men     .     .     .      278,279 
liyswick,  Treaty  of,  1607 58 


Sabbath  on  the  border 183-186 

Salmon  lisheries  and  the  railroads 330,  331 

San  Francisco,  early  settlers  of 239-244 

early  violence  in 182,  183 

St.  Peter's,  the  building  of 417,  418 

Schoolcraft  at  Chicago  in  1830 68 

Schoolhouse,  a  prin)itive  and  typical  one 209-211 

Schools  scarce  on  the  borders 209 

Selkirk's  Red  River  Settlement 180,  181 

Settlements,  growth  in 42-52 

position  of,  at  close  of  Revolution 42 

of  wild  land,  colonial  and  provincial  policy  of  ...  42-52 
Sewall,  Samuel,  on  growth  of  American  Colonies  .  .  .  359,  360 
Shuckford,  John,  journey  of,  from  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  to  St. 

Louis 347 

Shetheld's,  the  Baron,  forebodings  of  America   ....       397,  398 
Shipley,  Jonathan,  Bishop,  growth,  independence,  and  exam- 
ple of  the  American  Colonies 367,  368 

Simpson,  Sir  George,  boast  of 15,  16 

Smith,  Adam,  on  colonial  representation  in  Parliament    .     .     .     370 

Social  life  in  New  Mexico 183 

Society,  morals  of,  in  the  Southwest 187-190 

Sons  of  New  Hampshire,  festival  of,  and  Webster 355 

Spain  and  the  boundary  of  1783 28 

Spanish  and  French  colonies  in  America  dwarfed  by  isolation    353 
Spanish  and  Mexican  land  grants  guaranteed  by  the  United 

States  in  Treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo 141-146 

Stock-raising  in  wild  land 158,  159 

Sturgis,  William,  on  worth  of  Oregon 279 

Success  of  the  past  of  the  United  States  unprecedented    .     .     .     417 

"  Sylvestris  "  on  the  Cession  of  Louisiana 393 

on  the  Louisiana  Purchase     .     .     .     .    ■ 272 

Symmes's  land  schemes 46 


Taxes  in  United  States  and  Europe 341 

Tecumseh  and  the  War  of  1812 64,  65 

Texas,  earlj'  condition,  and  the  purchase  of  by  the  United 

States 34-36 

area  of 9,  10 


INDEX.  431 


The  Prophet  precipitates  Indian  War  at  Tippecanoe    ....      65 

The  West,  how  large 9-17 

Tippecanoe,  battle  of 64,  65 

Transportation  grades  values 318 

the  great  question  in  the  United  States 337 

Travel  in  old  time 346,  347 

more  at  home,  desirable 350,  351 

Turgot's  remarkably  correct  prophecies 364 


United  States,  area  of,  in  comparison  with  Europe      .     .     14,  17 

at  close  of  Revolution 41 

civil  and  moral  power  of,  in  the  world 391,  392 

compared  variously  with  other  nations 399-401 

domain  undivided 407,  408 

and  Europe  contrasted 340-342 

and  France  in  comparative  areas 9 

and  pAirope,  population  to  each  square  mile 341 

"United  States  of  Yesterday  and  of  To-morrow,"  not  a  history 
but  illustrative  chapters  of 54 

United  States,  the  power  of,  civil,  social,  and  moral    ....     391 

six  growths  of,  in  territory 27-40 

wealth  of,  in  1880     .    .    " 391 

Ursuline  Nuns  in  Louisiana 204,  205 

Utah  Basin,  and  increase  of  water 130 


Vergennes,  Count  de,  plots  against  the  j'oung  Republic     .  378-380 
afraid  of  the  results  of  independence  of  the  Colonies       .  377-380 

Vermont,  Southern  feeling  on  the  admission  of 276 

Vigilance  Committee,  character  and  proceedings  of     .     .       235,  236 

of  San  Francisco 238 

1851,  main  work  of 242 

Vigilance  Committee  of  San  Francisco,  suspension  of       .       251,  252 

its  designs 240-242 

methods  of 246,  250 

Vigilantes  of  Montana,  one  of  them  interviewed 223 

Virginia,  scheme  of  emigration  of 45 

City,  Montana,  Lynch  law  in 224-226 


Waldo  Patent 140 

Walpole,  Horace,  great  friend  of  the  Colonies      ....      369,  370 

War  debt  of  United  States  and  of  Europe       341 

War  of  1812,  Indian  preparations  for 64,  65 


432  INDEX. 

Page 

Wasliington  and  Western  travel        2G3-265 

carries  first  Englisli  iUv^  into  tlie  West 28 

on  dan<,fers  of  tlie  frontier 27 

on  home  travel 350 

on  Western  development       48 

family  and  Western  lands 44 

Territor}-  lumber  waiting  for  railway 317 

Water,  increase  of,  in  arid  lands       129-133 

Wayne,  General,  and  tlie  Indians CO 

Webb,  George,  and  the  future  of  Philadelphia 361 

Webster  defends  the  West        2'J2 

on  our  growth 355 

on  the  United  States  as  taking  the  Continent 389 

Webster's  admiration  of  the  vast 16 

defence  of  the  East,  weak  point  in 286,  287 

estimates  of  the  pioneers        277,  278 

West  not  understood  by  the  East 308,  309 

Western  Colleges,  Webster's  plea  for 220 

land  fever  in  early  days 44,  45 

land  speculators        45,  46 

boundary,  struggle  for,  in  the  treaty  of  1783    ....     27,  28 

limits  of'  United  States  in  1783 28,  29 

Whitman,  Dr.  Marcus,  brings  Oregon  to  light,  and  into  the 

Union        280 

Wild  Life  on  the  Border 169-199 

Winthrop,  Robert  C,  on  Oregon 279,  280 

"Winthrope's,  Mrs.  Margt,"  land  grant 141 

Work,    immediate,    energetic,  and    sacrificing,    demanded    of 
American  Christians        414,  415 


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"Sherwood  Bonner."  Suwanee  River  Tales,  Illustrated,  i6mo. 
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Mrs.  E.  V.  Boyle.  Days  and  Hours  in  a  Garden,  i6mo,  white 
cloth,  gilt,  uncut,  $2.00. 

Mary  Bradley.     Hidden  Sweetness,  Illustrated,  small  4to,  $1  50. 

Charles  T.  Brooks.  Poems,  with  Memoir,  i6mo,  $1.25;  Wil- 
liam Ellery  Channing,  with  Portrait,  Illustrated,  i6mo,  $1.50; 
The  Layman's  Breviary,  square  i6mo,  $1.50;  The  World-Priest, 
square  i6mo,  $2.25  ;  The  Wisdom  of  the  Brahmin,  i6mo,  $125. 

Sir  Thomas  Bro^wne.     Religio  Medici,  i6mo,  $1.25. 

Robert  Buchanan.     Poems,  i6mo,  $1.50. 

Sir  Edvrard  Bul'wrer-Lytton.  Dramas  and  Poems,  with  steel 
Portrait,  square  iSmo,  $i.oo;  Schiller's  Lay  of  the  Bell,  trans- 
lated by  Bulwer,  Illustrated,  oblong  4to,  $7. 50. 

John  Bunyan.     The  Pilgrim's  Progress.  Illustrated,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

F.  C.  Burnand.  Happy  Thoughts,  i6mo,  $1.00;  More  Happy 
Thoughts,  i6mo,  $100;  My  Health,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Happy 
Thought  Hall,  Illustrated,  square  i6mo,  $2.00;  The  New  His- 
tory of  Sandford  and  Merton,  Illustrated,  i6mo,  ^i.oo;  paper 
covers,  50  cents. 

By  The  Tiber.  A  Novel,  by  the  author  of  "  Signer  Monaldini's 
Niece,"  i6mo,  ^1.50. 

T.  Hall  Caine.  Recollections  of  D  G.  Rossetti,  with  Portrait, 
8vo,  $3.00. 

Helen  Campbell.  The  What-to-do  Club,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Mrs. 
Herndon's  Income,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Miss  Melinda's  Opportunity, 
i6mo,  $1.00;  Prisoners  of  Poverty,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

John  "W.  Chadwick.  Poems,  i6mo,  $1.00;  In  Nazareth  Town, 
i6mo,  $1.00;  The  Faith  of  Reason,  i6mo,  $1.00;  The  Man 
Jesus,  i6mo,  ]?i.oo 

Peleg  W.  Chandler.  Memoir  of  Governor  Andrew,  Illustrated, 
i6mo,  $1.25. 

George  L.  Chaney.  F.  Grant  &  Co.,  Illustrated,  i6mo,  $1.00; 
Tom,  Illustrated,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Aloha,  Illustrated,  l6mo,  $1.50; 
Every-day  Life  and  Every-day  Morals,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

William  Ellery  Channing.  Thoreau :  the  Poet-Naturalist, 
i6mo,  $1.50. 

Lydia  Maria  Child.     Aspirations  of  the  World,  i6mo,  $1.25. 

P.  W.  Clayden.     The  Life  of  Samuel  Sharpe,  i2mo,  $1.50. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers' 


"  Mabel  Collins."    Through  the  Gates  of  Gold,  a  Fragment  of 

Thouglit,  i6mo,  50  cents. 
Sara  Coleridge.     Phantasmion,  i2mo,  ;j2.oo. 
R.  Laird  Collier,  D.  D.     Meditations  on  the  Essence  of  Chri» 

tianity,  i2mo,  (i>i.25. 

"  Susan  Coolidge."  The  New  Year's  Bargain,  Illustrated, 
i6mo,  $1.25;  What  Katy  Did,  Illustrated,  i6mo,  $1.25;  What 
Katy  Did  at  School,  Illustrated,  i6mo,  J1.25  ;  What  Katy  Did 
Next,  Illustrated,  i6mo,  $1.25;  Mischief's  Thanksgiving,  Illus- 
trated, i6mo,  $1,215;  Nine  Little  Goslings,  Illustrated,  i6mo, 
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Caroline  H.  Dall.  Letters  Home  from  Colorado,  Utah,  and 
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speare, second  edition,  i6mo,  $1.25. 

Madame  D'Arblay.  Diary  and  Letters,  with  Portraits,  2  vols., 
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J.  Morrison  Davidson.     New  Book  of  Kings,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

Sir  Humphry  Davy.  Consolations  in  Travel,  Illustrated, 
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Daniel  Defoe.     Robinson  Crusoe,  Illustrated,  i2mo,  $1  50. 

Mrs.  Delany.  Autobiography,  with  Portraits,  2  vols.,  i2mo, 
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Paul  De  Musset.     Biography  of  Alfred  De  Musset,  i2mo,  $2.00. 

Madame  De  S6vign6.     Letters,  i2mo,  $1.50. 

Orville  Dewey.     Autobiography,  i2mo,  $1.75. 

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Anna  Bowman   Dodd.     Cathedral    Days,   Illustrated,    i2mo, 

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Maria  Edgeworth.     Classic  Tales,  i6mo,  ;?i.oo. 

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George  Eliot,  Wit  and  Wisdom  of,  square  i8mo,  $i.co. 

William  Everett.     School  Sermons,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

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Fuller,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Mary  Lamb,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Maria  Edge- 
worth,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Elizabeth  Fry,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Mary  Woll- 
stonecraft,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Harriet  Martineau,  i6mo,  ^i.oo; 
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Madame  Roland,  i6mo,  ^i.oo;  Mrs.  Siddons,  i6mo,  $1.00; 
Margaret  of  Angouleme,  i6mo,  ^i.oo;  Madame  De  Stael,  i6mo, 
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Festival  Poems.     For  Christmas,  etc.    Square  i6mo,  $1.25. 

Louis  Figuier.     To-morrow  of  Death,  i6mo,  $1.50. 

"George  Fleming."  Kismet,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Mirage,  i6mo, 
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Mrs.  Eliza  Fletcher.  Autobiography,  with  Portraits,  i6mo,  $1.50. 
James  E.  Freeman.     Gatherings  from  an  Artist's  Portfolio  in 
Rome,  i2mo,  $1.50. 

Ellen  Frothingham's  Translations.  Goethe's  Hermann  and 
Dorothea,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Illustrated,  8vo,  $2.00;  The  Laocoon, 
l6mo,  $1.50;  Sappho,  square  iSmo,  $1.00. 

Margaret  Fuller.  Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  i2mo, 
$1.50;  Art,  Literature,  and  the  Drama,  i2mo,  $1.50;  Life  With- 
out and  Life  Within,  i2mo,  $1.50;  At  Home  and  Abroad,  i2mo, 
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Theophile  Gautier.  My  Household  of  Pets.  Translated  by 
"Susan  Coolidge."     Illustrated,  i6mo,  $1.25. 

Judith  Gautier.     The  Usurper,  a  Novel,  i2mo,  $1.50. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers^ 


Oliver  Goldsmith.     The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  with  Illustrations 

by  Mulrcady,  i6mo,  $i.oo. 

Lord  Ronald  Gower.  My  Reminiscences,  with  Portrait,  i2mo, 
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Louise  Imogen  Guiney.     Goose-Quill  Papers,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

Edward  Everett  Hale.  In  His  Name,  Illustrated,  i2mo,  $2.00; 
square  iSmo,  $1.00;  paper  covers,  30  cents  ;  The  Man  Without 
a  Country,  i6mo,  $1.25;  His  Level  Best,  i6mo,  $1.25;  What 
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mas Eve  and  Christmas  Day,  i6mo,  $1.25  ;  Sybaris,  i6mo,  J?i.25 ; 
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Franklin  in  P>ance,  with  Portraits,  8vo,  J^3.oo. 

Eugenie  Hamerton.  The  Mirror  of  Truth,  Illustrated,  i6mo, 
$2.00;  Golden  Mediocrity,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

Philip  G.  Hamerton.  A  Painter's  Camp,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Thoughts 
about  Art,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Intellectual  Life,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Chai> 
ters  on  Animals,  1 2mo,  $2.00 ;  Round  My  House,  i2mo,  $2.00; 
The  Sylvan  Year  and  The  Unknown  River,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Wen- 
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of  J.  M.  W.  Turner,  i2mo,  $2.00 ;  The  Graphic  Arts,  i2mo,  $2.00 ; 
Human  Intercourse,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Landscape,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Paris, 
Illustrated,  8vo,  $300;  Etching  and  Etchers,  Illustrated,  8vo, 
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Harry  Blount,  a  Boy's  Book,  i6mo,  J1.25. 

Augustus  J.  C.  Hare.     Records  of  a  Quiet  Life,  i6mo,  $2.00. 

The  Heaven  Series.  Heaven  Our  Home,  i6mo,  jji.oo;  Life 
in  Heaven,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Meet  for  Heaven,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

Lafcadio  Hearn.     Some  Chinese  Ghosts,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

Frederic  Henry  Hedge.  Primeval  World  of  Hebrew  Tradi- 
tion, i6mo,  $1.50;  Reason  in  Religion,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Ways  of 
the  Spirit,  l6mo,  $1.50;  Atheism  in  Philosophy,  i2mo,  $2.00; 
Hours  with  German  Classics,  Svo,  {^2.50 


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Arthur  Helps.  Companions  of  My  Solitude,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Es- 
says, l6mo,  ?t.5o;  Brevia,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Conversations  on  War 
and  General  Culture,  i6mo,  $150;  Ivan  de  Biron,  i2mo,  1^2.25; 
Thoughts  Upon  Government,  8 vo,  ^^2.2 5;  Social  Pressure,  8vo, 
^52.25 ;  Brassey's  Life,  Svo,  $2.50;  Realmah,  i6mo,  $2.00  ;  Casimir 
Maremma,  i6mo,  $2.co. 

Holy  Songs,  Carols,  and  Sacred  Ballads,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

I".  L.  Hosmer  and  W.  C.  Gannett.  The  Thought  of  God 
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Lord  Houghton.  Poetical  Works,  with  Portrait,  2  vols.,  i6mo, 
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Julia  Ward  Howe.  Margaret  Fuller,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Modern 
Society,  i6mo,  50  cents. 

Maud  Howe.  San  Rosario  Ranch,  i6mo,  t>\.2^  ;  Atalanta  in 
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Leigh  Hunt.  Book  of  the  Sonnet,  i6mo,  $2.00;  The  Seer,  i6mo, 
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Jean  Ingelow.  Poems,  Cabinet  edition,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Diamond 
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Red-Line  Household  edition,  i2mo,  $1.25;  Illustrated  edition, 
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Skelligs,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Fated  to  be  Free,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Sarah  de 
Berenger,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Don  John,  i6mo,  Ji.oo,  John  Jerome, 
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J.  H.  Ingraham.  The  Prince  of  the  House  of  David,  i6mo, 
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Helen  Jackson.  Ramona,  i2mo,  $1.50;  Century  of  Dishonor, 
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Whiles,  i6mo,  $1.25;  Verses,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Sonnets  and  Lyrics, 
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8  Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers' 

Richard  Jefferiea  Wild  Life  in  a  Southern  County,  i6mo, 
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Great  Estate,  i2mo,  $1.50;  Story  of  My  Heart,  i6mo,  75  cents. 

Francis  Jacoz.  Cues  from  All  Quarters,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Bible 
Music,  i2mo,  $1.75- 

Joyce,  R.  D.  Deirdre,  a  Poem,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Blanid,  a  Poem, 
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Sylvester  Judd.  Margaret,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Richard  Edney, 
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John  Keats.    Poems.    Memoir  by  Lord  Houghton.    i6mo,  Sr.50. 

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Edward  Lear.     Nonsense  Songs,  Illustrated,  i2mo,  $1.25. 

Walter  Savage  Landor.  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  i6mo,  $1.50; 
Imaginary  Conversations,  5  vols.,  i2mo,  ^lo.oo;  Oxford  edition, 
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Mrs.  E.  W.  Latimer.  Familiar  Talks  on  Some  of  Shakspeare's 
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Vernon  Lee.  Baldwin,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Euphorion,  2  vols.,  demy 
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Mrs.  D.  A.  Lincoln.  Boston  Cook  Book,  Illustrated,  i2mo, 
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W.  J.  Linton.  Rare  Poems  of  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth 
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A  Little  Pilgrim,  i6mo,  60  cents. 

Abiel  A.  Livermore.     Anti-Tobacco,  i6mo,  50  cents. 

Living  English  Poets  (MDCCCLXXXH),  i2mo,  $2.00. 

Margaret  Lonsdale      Sister  Dora,  with  Portrait,  i6mo,  $\.2^. 


Standard  Library  Books. 


Robert  T.  S.  Lowell.  Antony  Brade,  i6mo,  $1.75 ;  A  Story  or 
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"W.  M.  Lupton.     A  Concise  English  History,  i2mo,  ;^i.50. 

Hamilton  W.  Mabie.     Norse  Stories,  i6mo,  $1.00. 

Lord  Macaulay.  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  with  "  Ivry "  and 
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John  MacGregor.  Thousand  Miles  in  the  Rob  Roy  Canoe, 
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George  MacDonald.    The  Vicar's  Daughter,  Illustrated,  i6mo, 

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Gerardine   Macpherson.     Memoirs  of   Anna  Jameson,    with 

Portrait,  8vo,  $2.50. 

James  Martineau.  Hours  of  Thought  on  Sacred  Things,  ist 
series,  i6mo,  $1.50;  2d  series,  i2mo,  $2.00. 

George  Meredith.  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel,  uncut,  English 
cloth,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Evan  Harrington,  uncut,  English  cloth, 
i2mo,  $2.00;  Harry  Richmond,  uncut,  English  cloth,  i2mo, 
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toria,  uncut,  English  cloth,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Rhoda  Fleming, 
uncyt,  English  cloth,  i2mo,  $2.00;  Beauchamp's  Career,  uncut, 
English  cloth,  i2mo,  $2.00  ;  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  uncut,  Eng- 
lish cloth,  i2mo,  ;^2.oo;  The  Egoist,  uncut,  English  cloth,  i2mo, 
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Joaquin  Miller.  Songs  of  the  Sierras,  i6mo,  $1.50;  Songs  of 
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J.  L.  MoUoy.  Our  Autumn  Holiday  §t\.  French  Rivers,  i6mo. 
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Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.     Letters,  i2mo,  $1.50. 

John  Morley.  Life  of  Richard  Cobden,  with  Portrait,  8vo. 
iSi.so. 


lO  Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers^ 

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run,  i6mo,  $1.00;  Love  is  Enough,  i6mo,  $1.25;  Hopes  and 
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